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Nvidia Is Negotiating To Buy A Large PC Oriented Company
- Thread starter erek
- Start date
They don't have enough money. nVidia is big and they have a lot of cash on hand (like $67 billion or so) but Microsoft is also huge. MS's market cap is around $2.9 trillion (nVidia's is $4.7 trillion). It effectively makes them un-buyable, nobody can raise that kind of capital. To actually completely "buy out" a company you have to pay out all the stockholders and even if you are just talking buying a controlling stake, meaning more than 50% of the stock, that is still about $1.5 trillion dollars. There's just no way for nVidia to raise that kind of money. They don't have enough collateral to offer banks, much less finding banks with that much to lend, nor can they sell enough stock to raise it. This is all assuming that they didn't have to pay a premium, which you often do in deals like that to make them happen.
They could buy out Dell, they are only worth like $181 billion so while their cash wouldn't do it, they'd have to raise money, it would be a doable amount for them though it would require a good deal of borrowing. ASUS would be trivial, they are like $15 billion so nVidia could buy them straight cash and still have plenty left over.
The super big companies though, companies like nVidia, MS, Apple, Google, they are un-buyable even to other super big companies.
While neither will ever happen in the foreseeable future, I'd rather have Musk buy MS over Nvidia. He'd clean out all the wasted space / dead weight MS is probably employing, in the same way he cleaned out the dead weight from Twitter (80%).
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HP has no server business. That went with HPE in the split.
depends. today we have concepts such as sovereign AI
Musk & LBT are pallying with each other to create an American foundry success story
if Nvidia can spin something like that then they can also get past FTC for approval
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My buddy worked for them out of Sioux City before they shutdown. Labor in the midwest is relatively cheap (not as cheap as somewhere like China). Would be cool to see them start up again.
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Yes, that is correct. 2007 I believe.
I wonder if nVidia might be going after Framework?
sharknice
Supreme [H]ardness
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They aren't going after anyone. It was a false rumor, OP posted it but everyone had fun speculating after anyways.
Nvidia just needs to train an AI to reverse engineer Windows.
SuperMicro is only valued at $18B and change right now because of all the scandals…
But Nvidia isn’t in the game of building their own machines, too much liability, and if they tried the pushback from regulators would be insane. You thought they got aggressive when they were trying to buy ARM….
Arm would have been a much bigger deal in hindsight than say a supermicro, coreweave or an Acer/Asus.
How much of their competition in the AI space (google Axion, amazon trainium/inference, Microsoft Cobalt, apple M silicon line for the end use case use ARM architectural license and heavily custom arm cores, I imagine openAI upcoming custom silicon will use arm core, memory controller...
Them owning an Asus seem many level smaller in term of potential issues, would seem quite uneasy for an OpenAI to use arm to build their Nvidia competitor (and for the legacy one that were already started on it), maybe there would be way to shield it, but there would be some stress for Arm users there.
How much of their competition in the AI space (google Axion, amazon trainium/inference, Microsoft Cobalt, apple M silicon line for the end use case use ARM architectural license and heavily custom arm cores, I imagine openAI upcoming custom silicon will use arm core, memory controller...
Them owning an Asus seem many level smaller in term of potential issues, would seem quite uneasy for an OpenAI to use arm to build their Nvidia competitor (and for the legacy one that were already started on it), maybe there would be way to shield it, but there would be some stress for Arm users there.
Niche/simple one that is not attacking directly important established product line of their partner they seem to be willing from time to time, spark/digits, DGX h100, jetsons, shield family of machines, if they come up with something new in product line we could seem them continue to have an Nvidia reference versions of them.
They sell them, but Foxconn makes the components, and the components are assembled for Nvidia by Acer, ASUS, and MSI
d3athf1sh
[H]ard|Gawd
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why do you want arm processors in PC's so bad?
I want a viable 3'rd option that gets us off the Intel or AMD bandwagon. I don't really care if it's ARM, RISC-V, fuck, they could bring back SPARC.
I also want Microsoft to fix their shit, and anything that forces them to clean up their underlying OS, I will cheer for.
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The only way ARM becomes viable for anyone other than Apple or the cell phone companies is is something big moves to support ARM. I mean, support it well. A version of Windows that doesn't feel like you're running something less than. Maybe SteamOS could pull it off.
DukenukemX
[H]F Junkie
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That's not how things are working out, or will ever work out. We've had other competing CPU architecture standards that weren't all that different from ARM, but ultimately failed. PowerPC, MIPS, and even Intel's own Itanium IA-64 all failed. All failed because in the end, people wanted that x86 backwards compatibility and AMD and Intel won't stop pumping R&D money into x86. This is why I believe Nvidia maybe looking to buy a PC manufacturer, because they know nobody would actually make laptops with their chips. Their long awaited N1X chip has been failing against AMD's and Intel's chips, which is why it keeps getting delayed.
ARM is viable for cell phones because it's been around since cell phones were introduced. ARM even killed off MIPS which was also used in cell phones. ARM viability for Apple is more like, you accept ARM or no Apple for you. If you want ARM to be viable then you need a reason for customers to want to buy them. There's no benefit to buying ARM, but lots of benefits to buying x86. Right now, Intel's Panther Lake is more power efficient than Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips.
I have budget approval to "recycle" the last of my Windows ARM-based Surface Pros in July... I am happy, they are a PITA
The fact that Windows ARM runs better inside a VM on a Mac than it does natively on Microsoft-designed hardware is a travesty that you can only laugh at.
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yeah, there is no way I would allow ARM laptops into my work environment. 99% of the time people are at their desk's plugged in. Only our field sales folks would benefit from better battery life. They'll get there with Panther Lake once it gets a bit cheaper.
DukenukemX
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Is that because of how Windows supports ARM or how bad Qualcomm chips are? A lot of the problems with dealing with ARM is because Qualcomm's drivers are shit.
It does, I think it has more to do with Xbox losing billions and Microsoft desperately looking for a way to turn it around.
SteamOS gaining too much traction is a huge problem for Microsoft, so if they don't fix Windows to head that off, it will snowball.
Both, Microsoft took Windows and stripped it down to "fully optimize" it for the Qualcomm chips; it contains no drivers for any other hardware, and the underlying WDDM functions have been stripped and rewritten specifically for the Qualcomm Arduino GPU architecture.
AND it still runs like utter ass on that hardware, because the chips are hot garbage with absolute shit drivers.
We have a few staff who the size and format worked for them, and the other Surface Pros were working great, and blah blah blah.
The ARM ones, Microsoft just let rot on the vine.
They started out OK, but every Windows Update becomes a forensic chore in "OK, how do I fix this new issue Microsoft introduced?" And ultimately, the answer is to disable updates, but then that breaks Intune Compliance, and it generates reports, which then come up in review about security posture and, and, and, and. So the answer is you just quietly ignore the support tickets they generate while you work in the background to make them go away, and take it as a lesson learned.
d3athf1sh
[H]ard|Gawd
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yeah but then you'd have arm in apple, arm in every phone, arm in some servers, a possible arm/nvidia thing, you'd end up putting intel and amd out of buisness and you'd have an arm monopoly, and that's not good for anyone. besides both amd and intel are both offering damn good power for not a lot of money these days, and i don't think forcing microslop to support another processor format is going make them change their ways.
maybe if enough people just drop their ass and switch to linux they'd eventually give us gamers a streamlined, lightweight, no bs, no ai version of windows we've been asking for? but i'm not holding my breath.
I highly doubt it would get to a place any time soon where AMD and Intel would be in danger of being put out of business, x86 isn’t going anywhere any time soon ARM isn’t the end all be all of processors.
And many reports indicate that a lightweight Windows is coming, Xbox needs it, and apparently so does the US military, what Microsoft charges the rest of us for it is another matter…
but those ARM cpu would be from Apple, Nvidia, Mediatek, Samsung, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD and so on, at first at least some would try to get a market share by shaking it up, an obvious lane would be offering ecc memory-high pci lanes support count at low price on the cpu, that one place where the amount of $ per silicon needed is quite controlled by the duopoly.
a 9950x is only 2 very small 70mm die of good silicon with 122mm of 6nm for about 20,000 millions transistor, come with nothing else no cooler anymore and launched at $650, people did find that the 357mm of monolitich N4P FinFET silicon with around 54,000 millions transistor on the 9070xt that came with 16GB of gddr6, a nice cooler, a small motherboard was costing too much at $600....
DukenukemX
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I'm more worried that ARM maybe used to lock consumers out of their devices, like we've seen with iOS and Android devices.
That's not how markets end up looking like. Apple makes their own chips for their own products, so it isn't really competition. Same goes for Samsung with their Exynos, except Samsung doesn't sell devices with their chips in USA because they're avoiding hefty licensing costs from Qualcomm. Google also makes chips for themselves, and even then for their data centers and cloud services. That leaves Qualcomm and Mediatek, with Nvidia using Mediatek to make their ARM chips.
On the Windows side of things, it's just Qualcomm with Nvidia very slowly trying to enter the market. By slowly I mean fucking slowly. In the end, ARM is still the owner of ARM and they can decide who makes what changes to their architecture. It's not like AMD and Intel who independently engineer their own chips. Apple and Qualcomm do engineer their own ARM chips, but again Apple is only for Apple. In the end, this is worse than a duopoly. There's also no guarantee this won't end up a duopoly anyway, like any other tech market. It's not like x86 has always only had two chip manufacturers and graphic cards always only had two chip manufacturers.
Different goals, different game.
I'm worried that's coming to all devices via dumb ass DRM Always Online BS requirements, the underlying engine driving it is a secondary concern.
At this point, I could honestly envision a world where AMD and Intel have some sort of "feature" built onto their chips that needs to periodically phone home to maintain operating as expected...
I can also see the push back against it and the global effort to update PiHole (or other home DNS gateway) to redirect and respond to that DRM check...
Companies are pushed for endless growth, eventually they squeeze the market dry, and then they have to start twisting for those last drops... I foresee them all starting to twist.
Popular customer PC being more open instead of the closed x86 duopoly is pure speculation, we do not know how it would end up, probably with only just 3 players right (intel-amd and the winner of the newcomers), but the transition would have people tempting disruption and one of the easiest is ECC-pci lane aspect and price.
ISA is quite agnostic of locking or not people of their device, x86 Xbox are quite locked, most arm pc are quite open (you can install the linux you want on the Nvidia Digits and it work really well out of the box), if they want to lock of their device using x86 they obviously can (Ps5-xboxX being example of that).
DukenukemX
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As it stands, AMD and Intel have to maintain some semblance of being able to allow other operating systems (like Linux) to be installed. Not only that but they also actively provide code to Linux to maintain functionality. Where as Apple doesn't do anything with Linux. Qualcomm does but it's really bad, and Nvidia does but not entirely at the same level as AMD and Intel.
Give it time. There's a reason why they won't let China routers into USA unless approved. When enough people build the forbidden router, then it'll be forbidden.
Try and see if you can install another OS on iPhones. Most Android phones also make this impossible. There is more security to prevent you from replacing the OS on your phone, then the OS in the phone itself. While Apple, Qualcomm, and soon Nvidia don't make this nearly as much of a problem on their desktop computers, it's not like these companies were welcoming it either. You'd think at least Qualcomm, but they're taking their sweet time.
x86 can be locked and has often been locked, but as far as desktop computers go, it's very open. There is the Raspberry Pi as well as many other RPi clones that are ARM based that are open. Ampere is fairly open. The point here is that for AMD and Intel it's good business to make sure their hardware stays open, where the same incentives aren't exactly there for companies who use ARM. Qualcomm allowing their Snapdragon X chips to be able to run Linux is more of a check mark on the features list to match that of AMD and Intel. Nvidia may have good reason to be open, since Linux is actually good business for them. Apple still don't care.
d3athf1sh
[H]ard|Gawd
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same for the ARM maker that are not vertical integrator OS wise (ampere-Nvidia server/non Nintendo device, as Nvidia margin on the hardware itself make it they do not care how you run it), Mac for example could have over time achieved to lock the x86 platform they sold, Microsoft ARM device tend to be closet because they are made by microsoft, not because of the ISA.
At some point the T2 security chip technology evolution on x86 Mac could have ended up locking Mac computer to MacOS quite well.
Apple could have made their own UEFI alternative, fully custom and proprietary that behave exactly like the one they have now on ARM and stay on Intel x86, that fully agnostic and nothing to do, nothing to do at all with the x86 ISA like you pointed out, that what the xbox do.
you use arm you can use systemReady and be quite open, you use x86 and you can use an UEFI-standard bios and be quite open or not at all, those things have nothing to do with the ISA and like many device show Intel-AMD will do they them for you if you want, Microsoft windows need for legacy support mixed with fear of anti-trust goverment action is what prevent it, not the ISA used.
Not sure it would explain what ? or why ? but that 18 minutes videos I doubt make much sense.
Small tsmc 7N cpu with no advanced packaging are still quite good, an even the complex more recent nodes ultra 7 270k that give you almost best in the world performance in most things with its 24 cores is still just $322.
A core ultra 7 270k compute tile is only 115mm and they sales them for $322 with no cooler, that way harder for Intel to beat those margin by doing something else than like when they were trying to sales 272MM of gpu + gddr6 + motherboard + cooler for $250.
CPU margin are so much higher than GPUs, so much smaller/higher yield and does not need to procure ram to be sold to customer, 1 billion phone will be made this year with 1 billion cpu in them, same will happen next year will be my guess. CoWos using CPU could be hard to get buy, but monolithic one (even those on old node) are still perfectly fine for most people.
d3athf1sh
[H]ard|Gawd
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well if you are in a bad mood and don't have time to watch/listen to the video then just move on next time. but if you need me to explain it to you, part of what he's explaining is how this newer form of a.i. (agentic?) is already putting more stress on the processor, just the way the process works, the old type of AI gets massive acceleration from GPU's parallelism but the new more complex type has a bigger hit to the main processor to where the best performance ratio is looking to eventually be 1 cpu : 1 gpu. it's better explained in the video, but i guess if nvidia can buy someone like dell, that's already shipping pre-built servers, then they can cut out the middle man, have system integrator volume pricing on cpu's and then can start supplying prebuilts to ai datacenters to where 98% of the product is supplied by them, so they can maximize profits. the only thing they'd have to buy from someone else is the processors. i'm sure they're finding that when it comes down to it X86-64 gives ultimate performance and can do things not possible with arm processors because of single threaded performance.
yes I got to this part and the pace of it did seem like a short text/4 minutes video would have done it.
If nvidia buy dell that does not help them getting their hands on the Nvidia grace cpus they use or why Nvidia would start buying CPU from someone else instead of using their owns and change their design as needed. (not that making arm or x86 cpu for this change things in term of cpu apocalyspe, same amount would exist)
Maybe they can win per cores for some things versus some arm design as they wanted to go really wide and low energy per cores, it is not like Apple single thread performance is not really high, but agents love low latency and NvLink c2c that the Grace cpus platform offer, amazon latest graviton are made for Agentic work same for google custom design infracstructure, not that it change necessarily anything, does not change the amount of cpu being made-used that they do of course.