Everyone says there's a massive compute shortage. But where is it showing up? For whom is there a shortage?
Every time I ask Claude to do something, it does it just fine. I never have to wait in any sort of queue that would be common in other kinds of shortages.
It's showing up for enterprises (and ISVs) who need capacity from cloud vendors and can't get it. Sometimes there are some GPU shapes available, but not always what you either need or want to pay for (e.g. a TPU vs a V100 vs a B300), and also not always in spot instances (frequently not).
The hyperscalers are all so oversubscribed that they require commits from enterprises so if you only have a transient need you might be out of luck [from your vendor of choice]. Additionally, not all GPU service providers are equal. Semi Analysis has some great articles explaining why.
No, rationing is what you get in command/centralized economies like the USSR. In free market economies you get price explosion, like we're seeing right now with DRAM wafers.
Right, but pricing is for the marginal unit of hardware.
what I'm wondering: is there a shortage of compute in the current installed base? Why isn't the installed base of compute increasing drastically in price, and/or forcing me to wait in a queue to use it?
Shovels and gold aren’t the problem, humans are the problem
either AI achieves hyper-efficiency and triggers systematic economic demand destruction due to unemployment, or it underperforms and sparks a massive tech-sector asset bubble burst
If AI is as good as valuations - it crashes. If AI isn’t as good, it crashes. all eggs in one basket economy.
Every future leads to a massive financial shitstorm
AI is priced in as a technology to end all markets. The last bull market you will ever see.
It’s a miracle markets didn’t notice this “damned if you succeed damned if you don’t” type of inevitable checkmate
> It’s a miracle markets didn’t notice this “damned if you succeed damned if you don’t” type of inevitable checkmate
They learned from 2008 that Too Big Too Fail(tm) means the government bails you out.
This was the problem with not OBLITERATING the banks in 2008. Had the US government taken over the banks and wiped the investors, there would be more pushback right now.
It's possible. If goog's AI overview is accurate, it seems somewhat similar to speculative euphoria seen in the past (eg companies involved in electricity prior to the great depression). It's larger (currently 35% for AI versus 25% for electric/related cos), I'm guessing because of more credit. At the same time, the housing component of the market prior to the GFC was about 23%, and it wasn't as economically damaging as the GD, so hopefully the AI bubble unwinding won't be as bad.
Not according to Goog's. The railroad bubble of the 1880s was supposedly 60+% of the market. It may not be accurate though.
"During the 1880s, private railroad enterprises represented over 60% of the total capitalization of the entire U.S. stock market, peaking at 63% in 1881 and 1885."
I asked Goog's for enterprise value of the sector as a percentage of total market in all 4 situations, so it's not exact because enterprise value isn't available back to the 1800s, but it should be ballpark assuming the overall picture is accurate.
In terms of infra spending as a percent of GDP, 1880s railroads were at 5-6% at peak while AI is estimated to reach 3+% in a year or two.
There will be an abundance of shovels. Nebius already crashed by almost half from its hype peak.