[dahart]

Apple might be sort-of trying to build the honking CPU, but it still requires different language extensions and a mix of different programming models.

And what you suggest could be done, but it would likely flop commercially if you made it today, which is why they aren’t doing it. SIMD machines are faster on homogenous workloads, by a lot. It would be a bummer to develop a CPU with thousands of cores that is still tens or hundreds of times slower than a comparably priced GPU.

SIMD isn’t going away anytime soon, or maybe ever. When the workload is embarrassingly parallel, it’s cheaper and more efficient to use SIMD over general purpose cores. Specialized chiplets and co-processors are on the rise too, co-inciding with the wane of Moore’s law; specialization is often the lowest hanging fruit for improving efficiency now.

There’s going to be plenty of demand for general programmers but maybe worth keeping in mind the kinds of opportunities that are opening up for people who can learn and develop special purpose hardware and software.