The CHIPS act has failed. Solution? Sue NVIDIA
It was surprising today to see the news of a brand new Antitrust probe against NVIDIA. What exactly might this be about? One answer might be that it's primary competitor, Intel, has announced a pending potential split from it's foundry business and retained Goldman Sachs to support.
There is a little bit of a problem here given that we are in the home stretch of a high contentious election. A primary objective of the Biden administration has been to preserve domestic semiconductor manufacturing via the CHIPS act.
If Intel were to break apart within 60 days of the November election, this would cast a shadow over the effectiveness of the CHIPS act - adding an unpleasant color to the current administration resulting in a rather inconvenient news cycle heading into the voting season.
One potential strategy to get ahead of the news? Accuse NVIDIA of antitrust behavior. Reading through the currently available talking points - I am not able to find anything substantive other than "NVIDIA's chips are really good."
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Being highly competent, hiring and leading an elite team, making long term plans (founding and sticking with the CUDA platform for decades) and winning big is not "antitrust," it is competent leadership and execution.
I am a little worried about this announcement - I suspect, based on having worked at several of these companies, that we are seeing a pre-emptive effort to cover for the breakup of a major American semiconductor company which was supposed to be protected by the CHIPS act.
That looks bad, maybe blaming NVIDIA (for being competent) for Intel's failure (and the failure of the CHIPS act) might provide a little bit of air cover leading into the election. Unless I see more concerning details from this probe, it seems rather suspicious.
How about the question - was Intel forthright in their application for funding or was it merely a way to have cash flow during a tough period of time? Intel seems to have forgotten how to innovate or is being crushed so badly by cash flow issues that they can't effectively execute a strategy to get out of their own mess?
Generative Natural Intelligence
2 个月From the article it seems the direction is to accuse NVIDIA of coercive and illegal bundling similar to what Microsoft did with Windows and PC compatible manufacturers back in the 90s. Whether or not the claim has merit it seems irrelevant to Intel's future. One possible concern over in the Intel camp is that in a divestment NVIDIA would be able to pick up the fabs at a steep discount and then (because they have a differentiated product) do to Intel what Intel used to do to everyone else. Active antitrust action could head that off.
We both know TSMC and Intel view the World through different rose colored glasses Rex, both have Fabs in Arizona! Nvidia at least has a pulse, no one seems to have the perfect strategy on how to sell AI chips to China? I say bring in Taiwanese innovation to inject new life into the industry! Re-invention is the lifeblood of any industry and technology, cheers, Karl Weaver 魏卡爾