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by rerx 846 days ago
> "Basically nobody writes CUDA," wrote Keller in a follow-up post. "If you do write CUDA, it is probably not fast. […] There is a good reason there is Triton, Tensor RT, Neon, and Mojo."

> Even Nvidia itself has tools that do not exclusively rely on CUDA. For example, Triton Inference Server is an open-source tool by Nvidia that simplifies deploying AI models at scale, supporting frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and ONNX. Triton also provides features like model versioning, multi-model serving, and concurrent model execution to optimize the utilization of GPU and CPU resources.

> Nvidia's TensorRT is a high-performance deep learning inference optimizer and runtime library that accelerates deep learning inference on Nvidia GPUs. [...]

Keller was speaking of OpenAI's Triton (https://openai.com/research/triton), a Python-like language that is compiled to code for Nvidia GPUs, but Tom's Hardware mixed this up with Nvidia's Triton Inference Server, a higher level tool that's really not a replacement for CUDA and not directly related to the Triton language. Easy to confuse these if you are a writer in a hurry.

2 comments

Jim Keller works for Tenstorrent - direct Nvidia competitor.
Wow, that's some omission in the article. Mentioned in the very bottom, but with no disclaimer that it might influence his opinion as they're a competitor:

> His statements also imply that even though he has worked stints at some of the largest chipmakers in the world, including the likes of Apple, Intel, AMD, Broadcom (and now Tenstorrent), we might not see his name on the Nvidia roster any time soon.

"it might influence his opinion as they're a competitor"

Or, as is just often the case, he competes with Nvidia because he has a different opinion (of their vision).

I'd tend to lean this way. Keller is someone who could generally call any chip company in the world, and have a top job tomorrow. Not some scrappy dreamer who's just trying to steal customers from a big player.
>Keller is someone who could generally call any chip company in the world, and have a top job tomorrow.

How does someone achieve this? Raw IQ? The right schools? Right place/right time? Luck + effort?

Is there something a moderately intelligent person can do that has a high likelihood of moving them in this direction (if not actually achieving it)?

Speculation ahead: a little of all columns.

The field itself is already pretty niche. The amount of people on his level probably fit on an index card. That helps probably the most.

He's obviously a smart guy, but to me his wisdom comes from being able to actually understand the system and explain it. Whether he actually codes it or is even that smart becomes irrelevant, he has the ability to big picture it and get aces in their places.

But mostly the first point. The niche is so small you'd probably be hard pressed to find someone in comments who actually has worked alongside him to even attest to any of this.

It's immensely clear that when he goes somewhere, some big advancement usually happens, and he can explain why. Even if that's -all- he knew, it'd be enough to make him super valuable. So if we have to keep going back and pinning traits, I'd say it's some amount of intelligence mixed with a whole lot of passion.

I found his interviews on Lex Fridman to be interesting:

https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4

https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA

I meant more in terms of the article content. The entire article is about his point-of-view, but it's surely useful to the readers to know if he's just someone who happens to have an opinion, or if he also directly competes with the project/company he is talking about. But they never say that.
Somehow, I don't see him going to Nvidia in any case. Their designs are very different from his philosophy, and he can be quite opinionated. I'd characterise Tenstorrent as his attempt to build the opposite of an Nvidia style accelerator.
What is his philosophy ?
He gets into that in his talk with Lex Fridman.
If only there was a service that could watch a 2 hour video and give you a detailed answer to this question in a few seconds just by asking it… soon enough I guess.
He wants to be the boss, and there’s already one of those at Nvidia.
"Works for" is one way to put it - he's CEO and (I think?) co-founder..
No, he showed up way after founding, he might have been an advisor before though. I'm not sure what the founding CEO is up to now but he had worked in AMD's GPU group and might have met Keller during that work.
So, "founder" in the way that Elon "founded" Tesla?
Not at all, I don't think Keller claims he was a founder.
Indeed - Keller is a low level hardware guy, and isn't going to have much interest in model versioning...
Isn't low-level hardware really at the heart of a lot of this? Hasn't a lot of the criticism of Cuda been that it's incredibly difficult for others to implement on other hardware bc of the low-level interactions and Nvidia's usage of dark-APIs (can't recall the term i've heard used).

Wasn't this one of the reasons AMD abandoned/deprioritized their efforts on such a project?

Keller is a manager. He was a gateware engineer.
Even so his long and influential experience influences his managing and the direction of the company.