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by DanHulton 1058 days ago
I feel like it took practically no time for custom ASICs for bitcoin mining to show up, as soon as it was determined there was real money involved.

Given that there's already definitely real money involved here, I wonder what's holding up the custom AI ASICs?
1 comments
api 1058 days ago
It takes a while to design an ASIC and it hasn't been that long since the hype wave really arrived for these things. I would bet on LLM chips showing up in 2024-2025.

There's also a run on foundries right now which might delay things further. The new foundries in the US being built under the Chips act in Arizona and Ohio won't be online until probably 2025.

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DanHulton 1057 days ago
Ah that's an excellent point about the foundries, I hadn't considered that. Also, in reflection, I'm being pretty handwavy about the "as soon as it was determined there was real money involved."

Honestly, I'd probably be pretty unsurprised to learn if the time difference between "big commercial interest" and "custom chips appear" is probably pretty similar for both cases.

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api 1057 days ago
I recall it taking years for BTC ASICS that were generally available.
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