← Back to context

Comment by firasd

1 day ago

Just serving the model over API seems like a natural fit and is what many of them are doing. So simply being the cloud provider for your own open weight model can be a source of revenue

What is the moat? The time it takes for AI to rewrite an efficient inference stack for a new model? Considering most LLMs follow a similar architecture, adapting to a new model shouldn't take that much time.

  • There is no moat. At the moment, all of these companies are burning money to gain mindshare and market share. That's what Thinking Machines is doing; they're not looking for a business model.

  • I don't know why people keep saying there's no moat. There's no moat. Having a FUCK ton of money to train these gigantic fucking models and retain the brains to make it happen is a moat.

    You're not going to train one using a VPS from LowEndBox.

    • But if people can download it for free, that is a drawbridge across the moat competitors can use to get the same model.

But so can everyone else. What’s the moat for spending all those billions. I understand the Chinese angle, they need to undermine American models as a matter of statecraft, but what is the business model here? It just seems like VC charity.

  • There are no moats. LLM's are a commodity. The point in spending all of the billions is to have strong domestic open-weight models.

    One of the worst case scenarios regarding LLM's is monopoly control, so these billionaires know they need to invest in competition.