What are you going to run in a cell tower data center. The autonomous car or whatever will have proprietary hardware and software. The central data center corresponding to that car will have proprietary hardware and software. But, it seems that you are suggesting that the cell company will provide the data center on the tower??? So, what will run there? And how will that work with 5G where the number of antennas needs to multiply dramatically? Surely each car company isn’t going to provide their own tower data center, especially with 5G.
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Smorg, the term “edge data center” does exist, but seems to correspond to something more like Netflix putting a satellite DC in Chicago to supply the most common material to the local market, i.e., a long way from one on every cell tower.
We already have a legal frame work for companies to share the ILEC (Incumebent Local Exchange Carrier) technical space. Because the 5g cells or so small, (In the extrely high frequency space) the actual intellegence is in the MTSO (Mobile Telephone Switching Office) While there are no technical space sharing requirments for mobility, the frame work is already in place from the ILEC.
What is more, with Virtual Machines, there is no reason this cannot be abstracted more so that one box with an NVDA card couldn’t handle every company as a virtual instance and each company could handle each car.
In fact these technical space, which are either underutilized or completly empty may be the salvation of the large telecom companies.
Or they could be the same help as all that awesome retail space was for Sears and Kmart.
Cheers
Qazulight
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Seems to me that in a collaborative environment, one would work toward a common agreed set of facts first and then decide what was and was not important for the investment thesis second. Leaving non-facts alone creates doubt about the whole, even when changing them to facts won’t change the investment thesis.
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tamhas: Smorg, the term “edge data center” does exist…
Tinker actually first used the term “edge computing data center.” That does not exist. If you read the thread from the beginning, you’ll see that I simply asked what that meant, as I had not heard it before. Tinker responded with a slight that I didn’t know what “edge data center” was, instead of saying “sorry, I meant 'edge data center.”.
I honestly hadn’t thought Tinker meant edge data center because, as you also point out, those have nothing to do with Nividia’s self driving report. When he doubled down on them, he made some rather grossly incorrect statements.
Duma: it isn’t necessary to correct punctuation because the main theme is perfectly intact. For example, nothing you argued has changed the investment thesis for NVDA
Being off by two orders of magnitude is not a punctuation error.
As I pointed out previously, my read of Tinker’s posts was that Edge Data Centers are essential for Nvidia to bring Autonomous Vehicles to market, and that this was a reason to possibly invest in HCI providers like RedHat and Nutanix with Sherlock also. The truth is that Nvidia doesn’t need HCI to be successful, and that HCI vendors won’t be getting much business from the AV use case.
I hope this post properly puts perspective in how we can all get the most from these boards
Duma, it does not. You appear to be trying to be Tinker’s board bodyguard, first saying I was wrong, then saying my corrections were personal attacks against him, and now saying that his incorrect information was mere “punctuation” and doesn’t affect the investment thesis. You claim my posts are a “test of will” while characterizing Tinker’s as merely “passion.” Finally, you repeated Tinker’s broadly insulting generality that technical experts like myself are “least investment adept,” even bringing up the same example.
These are not the behaviors of the peacemaker you claim to be.
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“Nvidia’s only autonomous car platform competition is from Intel.”
Why do you dismiss Waymo? Surely their goal is not to drive on fixed routes similar to a trolley.
In fact here is an article where a Waymo car crashed on a freeway when the operator fell asleep and accidentally turned off the self driving feature.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/jalopnik.com/googles-waymo-self…
Why would anyone dismiss Waymo when they are planning to be the first to market with a self driving taxi service with no operator in the near future.
One of the reasons there have been little tests on the freeway is not the complexity of merging on/off the freeway itself but intervention and reaction time needed while traveling at high speeds.
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Hey guys, this thread has been incredibly informative, but now it seems to be just turning into personal arguments, is no longer productive, and is generating bad feelings among board members. What say we PUT THE THREAD TO BED, AND DISCONTINUE IT. I think we’ll all be better for that!
Thanks for your cooperation,
Saul
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12x Waymo uses Intel for its chips. They are not using their own chips, ergo Intel, not Waymo is the competition for Nvidia. If you recall Intel paid something like 32x forward revenues for Mobileye to get into the market.
Tinker
Waymo is not developing a general market autonomous vehicle platform to sell into other companies vehicles. They are developing autonomous driving as a service. The self driving technology they are developing are very specific to that specific need. They will compete against about 25 of Nvidia’s customers in that space.
That is not a diss on Waymo or their achievements by any stretch. They are doing amazing things and are close to deployment. Of a ride hailing service. Their focus is on “shared mobility”. Go through their website, where is their Drive AGX processor equivalent that they are going to go to vehicle manufacturers or other autonomous vehicle producers and say here buy this and develop your own system. All of the announcements about Waymo and vehicle companies are the other way around than they are for Nvidia. Waymo is the buyer of vehicles to fit with their technology and deploy in “shared mobility”. Contracted with Chrysler for 20,000 Pacifica vans and with Jaguar for a similar number of EV SUVs. No mention of any companies purchasing Waymos technology for their own use.
Waymo’s vision is for you to use an app and have a Waymo vehicle pick you up and bring you where you want to go. Nvidia’s vision is for you to buy a car with their AGX supercomputer inside performing whatever type of autonomous and AI features that the vehicle designers have developed. There are dozens of companies and startups that are developing what Waymo is doing, most using Nvidia’s platform. The only other company I know of that is doing what Nvidia is doing is Intel. Waymo uses Intel processors if I’m not mistaken.
Mayhaps, in the future Waymo will start to market just the “brains”. Dunno. A few years from now that may be an even harder market to try to enter.
Darth
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Hi Smorg,
Duma, it does not. You appear to be trying to be Tinker’s board bodyguard, first saying I was wrong, then saying my corrections were personal attacks against him, and now saying that his incorrect information was mere “punctuation” and doesn’t affect the investment thesis. You claim my posts are a “test of will” while characterizing Tinker’s as merely “passion.” Finally, you repeated Tinker’s broadly insulting generality that technical experts like myself are “least investment adept,” even bringing up the same example.
These are not the behaviors of the peacemaker you claim to be.
You are correct. Duma comes on Saul’s board and attacks Saul and anyone else that disagree’s with Tinker. Although Tinker does not have a problem with people disagreeing with him Duma has a disturbing need to “protect” Tinker. I can point you to many posts where Duma has been very divisive, he has never been the peacemaker. So I would not let anything Duma says influence you.
Andy
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Andy and all,
Please refer to Saul’s request to end this thread:
https://discussion.fool.com/hey-guys-this-thread-has-been-incred…
It now adds absolutely nothing to this board other than discord.
Gene
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This is ridiculous. If that is the way you guys want to be I will stop contributing.
I was absolutely correct on edge data centers and the other issue (that I do not even know anymore) and Smorg comes off as hyper-technical.
I can tell you what HCI does, it simplifies and makes as if singular the combination of computer, storage and network. But I am sure Smorg will come over and say “I am wrong” and then give me some hyper technical lecture and then call me “lucky”.
Duma is one of the most astute investors I have ever seen. He is up there with Saul. time and time again he has dug up gem after gem. You know I have clients come up to me with box full of documents and evidence, etc. In the end I tell them I can spend $10k going through it, or you can let me get to the gist of the matter and identify just that 10% of all of that, which I need to win the case.
The same thing is true with investing. If you want to not do the least bit and admit, “yep, Tinker was right with edge computing and cell phone towers, and this is more details that may be of interest to you guys,” that I really have no interest in continuing to conversate with you.
Why don’t you go conversate about the material differences between the 7 nm production process between TSMC and its competitors while I focus on the healthcare vertical that Nvidia is set to dominate for many years and that represents 50% of its current revenues, with the sector continuing to grow.
I have never seen the likes of it. I will leave it at that. I post exactly to the exact point that I made, that it was already happening, etc., and yet I get a lecture as to how I was wrong?
Seriously!
I am just going to gray you guys out. I respect Saul too much and many of the other posters here who contribute so much. So please gray me out as well if I am such an idiot.
Good day and do not respond and clog up this thread anymore.
Tinker
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Gene,
Normally I would agree with you but I can point to may posts where Duma has been very decisive to everyone on this board and others. If you would like to me to point to those posts I would be more than happy to. Otherwise just go back on all the posts he has made in the last 100 days and you can see for yourself.
Andy.
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Tinker,
Duma is one of the most astute investors I have ever seen. He is up there with Saul.
Really, LOL. So you think Duma is as astute a investor as Saul. So point me to the Duma Investing Discussion board so I can soak all his wisdom in. I can point you to many post where Duma has denigrated Saul. But I can’t point you to one post where Saul denigrated Duma. Can you?
Andy
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Tinker,
Duma is one of the most astute investors I have ever seen. He is up there with Saul.
Really, LOL. So you think Duma is as astute a investor as Saul. So point me to the Duma Investing Discussion board so I can soak all his wisdom in. I can point you to many post where Duma has denigrated Saul. But I can’t point you to one post where Saul denigrated Duma. Can you?
Hey Andrew:
Still unhinged I see?
OK, I will accept your challenge…produce all my posts where I denigrated SAUL…GO AHEAD.
You may do it here is Saul doesn’t mind or bring it to the NPI…you leveled the accusation…go ahead.
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OK, I’ll bite: what is an “edge computing data center”?
Because my read is that it’s more than an oxymoron, it’s a self-contradictory, non-existent thing.
At first sight it does seem to be an oxymoron because what one expects to exist at the edge are processors, not data centers, but…
Confused by “the Edge?” 5 Ways to Define Edge Data Centers
July 20, 2017
Edge computing and edge data centers are buzzwords popping up in IT publications all over the Internet, but what do they really mean? Edge computing is more straightforward, and has been simply defined as “data processing power at the edge of a network instead of in a cloud or a central data warehouse.” However, edge data centers are being defined in a variety of ways followed by outrageous claims that this new data center concept will “blow away the cloud.” Your preferred definition will likely depend on your industry. Here are 5 widely communicated ones to broaden your perspective.
https://www.datafoundry.com/blog/5-ways-to-define-edge-data-…
edge data center
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q…
Denny Schlesinger
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To undersrand edge data center, you need to understand how your current wireless works.
Today if you are in the Mid-west, as far north as the Canadian border, your phone is being processed through Omaha. If you are sitting in your Pheasant blind and you call your buddy the next blind over, the entire conversation goes through Omaha.
This will not work for 5G. The sjgnals just cannot accept that kind of delay. The processing will need to be done much more locally, probably at the nearest building that was a “central office” most of the wireless signals pass through them now, although they are not processed there.
Today, if you access an over the top application, your signal must pass through a cell tower, a central office, a MTSO and probably some Legacy T point of prescence offices (POP) then it can be forwarded to the data center that may or may not be anywhere close.
This will not work and meet the 5? (it could be 15 ms) ping time from the user interface (UI).
To get the time down, the signal will need to be processed close to the user. The “central office” is the most likely place to do this as they are close and mostly empty.
The technical and legal frame work for this is already in place. However, I can see NVDA powered AI sitting in todays traditional cell sites also.
Cheers
Qazulight
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When one has been in IT as long as I have, over 50 years, one has seen innumerable shifts from core to edge and back. At first “core” as just one computer and “edge” a dumb terminal. Then “smart” terminals gave power to the edge. Next someone invented “computer utilities” where smart terminals were connected to huge (for their time) computers over dedicated telephone land lines. They were called “utilities” because you only used them intermittently like water (turn the tap on and off) and electricity (on/off switch). Then came “client/server” architectures, etc., etc., etc.
During these years I met two kinds of people, those who saw the new paradigms and those who didn’t. Sometimes the mental process to accept the change is not easy. Recently I posted about the new paradigm in storage architecture driven by solid state memory claiming that it was as radical as the shift from tape to disk circa mid 1960s. I got the usual reaction, some bought it and others didn’t. I’m long Pure (PSTG) based on my perception of paradign shift in storage.
In IT one has no choice but to keep an open and receptive mind if you wish to stay up-to-date.
Denny Schlesinger
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Denny, there are two issues here. One is the non-standard use of “edge computing data center” which might be just a slip, but appears to designate something other than the “edge data centers” that we know about.
The other is that Tinker’s description seemed to point to one on every cell tower or at least something approaching that. That would be a truly massive deployment of computing power, especially since one imagines every carrier would have to deploy their own. With the shift to much higher density of antennas in 5G it becomes unimaginable.
But, however, the term edge data center is usually meant a proprietary subordinate data center intended to serve the bulk of the traffic for some local area, where local area is something like Chicago, not the area reached by a particular cell tower. These make perfect since with high traffic volumes since it means that the bulk of the volume can be isolated locally and still kept in sync with the central data center.
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That would be a truly massive deployment of computing power, especially since one imagines every carrier would have to deploy their own. With the shift to much higher density of antennas in 5G it becomes unimaginable.
I don’t see this at all.
With the current CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) laws a cloud company like AWS (Amazon Web Service) could build one rack server centers in the ILEC (Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier) office and grab the 5g signals there. It would be a little further than the cell site but closer than most 4g MTSO’s (Mobile Telephone Switching Office).
As the building, power, and cooling and the fiber terminations are already there, a cloud server center is not a big deal. Further, central offices are kind of a neutral ground, and leasing compute from a cloud vendor even absracts it further. In this case tue build out is not that hard.
This doesn’t mean that it will all work that way, but in many cases it could.
These central offices are the legacy of the old copper POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines. These were limited by current and voltage drops as such they are in many areas. As they were mostly built before digital switching, they are overly large for the equipment in them.
While Tinker probably has no clue about all of this, his idea is spot on.
Cheers
Qazulight
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