| > just like bitcoin The problem with this comparison is Bitcoin has basically just been SHA256 for 15 years and likely will continue to be for some time. Transformers have been mostly dominant for at least several years but there are still other archs (CNN, RNN, etc) in various use-cases and we're already seeing nearly-fundamental changes in Transformers and "emerging" approaches like Mamba, RWKV, hybrids, etc. Transformers have shown remarkable versatility and adaptability (that's their whole thing) but it's already creaking and showing its age. Startups building Transformer-specific silicon are playing a very risky game that is already somewhat problematic now and almost certainly won't end well. AI is much newer, much more vast, and moving much more quickly. The ASIC design, tape out, manufacture, software ecosystem, actually getting to market, etc cycle is fundamentally too long and I suspect even the Transformer-specific silicon we see now will be viewed as a major blunder in the relatively near future: "Oh yeah, remember those graveyard companies that did transformer silicon back in the first AI hype round?" I cannot see how anything other than GPGPU, TPU, NPU, etc (or similar "generic" approaches) will have legs. |