The Nvidia-Intel Bombshell Alliance

Eric: Dylan, welcome back to the podcast.

埃里克: 迪伦，欢迎回到我们的播客。

Dylan: Thanks for having me. Yeah.

迪伦: 谢谢邀请。是的。

Eric: Uh, it just so happens that there's some big news just as we're as we're having you. Nvidia, uh, announcing $5 billion investment in Intel and them teaming up to jointly develop custom data centers and PC products. What do you think about the collaboration?

埃里克: 嗯，正好在我们邀请你来的时候，出了一些大新闻。英伟达宣布向英特尔投资50亿美元，并与他们合作共同开发定制数据中心和PC产品。你对这次合作有什么看法？

Dylan: I think I think it's hilarious that like Nvidia could invest, it gets announced, and their investment's already up 30%. $5 billion investment, a billion dollar profit already, right? Like I think it's fun because uh they need their customers to really uh have big buy in. So when their potential customers uh buy in and commit to certain types of products, it makes a lot of sense, right?

迪伦: 我觉得这很有趣，英伟达刚宣布投资，他们的投资就已经上涨了30%。50亿美元的投资，已经赚了10亿美元的利润，对吧？我觉得这很有意思，因为他们需要客户真正地投入。所以当他们的潜在客户投入并承诺购买某些类型的产品时，这一切就很有道理了。

Dylan: And it's kind of uh funny in a way because in the past um there was this whole like thing around how Intel was sued for being anti-competitive with their chipsets and Nvidia actually got like a settlement from Intel right way back when when like the graphics were separate from the GPU and the the graphics were really put on the chipset which had like all this other IO um like USB and all this stuff. Um, so, so it's kind of a a a funny like turn of events that now Intel is going to make like a chiplet and package it alongside a chiplet from from Nvidia and then that's like a PC product, right?

迪伦: 从某种程度上说，这有点好笑，因为在过去，英特尔曾因其芯片组存在反竞争行为而被起诉，而英伟达实际上从英特尔那里得到了一笔和解金。那是在很久以前，当时图形处理还是独立于GPU的，图形功能被集成在芯片组上，芯片组还包含了所有其他的IO，比如USB之类的。所以，现在英特尔要去制造一个chiplet（小芯片：一种先进的封装技术，将多个小芯片集成在一个封装内，以实现更强的功能）并将其与英伟达的chiplet封装在一起，形成一个PC产品，这真是一个有趣的转折。

Dylan: So, you know, it's kind of poetic that everything's gone full circle and Intel's sort of crawling to Nvidia, but actually it might just be the best like device, right? Um, I don't want an ARM laptop because it can't do a lot of things and so an x86 laptop with Nvidia graphics fully integrated would be probably the best product in the market.

迪伦: 所以，你知道，一切都回到了原点，英特尔有点像是在向英伟达“匍匐前进”，这有点诗意。但实际上，这可能就是最好的设备。我不想用ARM（一种精简指令集计算机架构，广泛用于移动设备）架构的笔记本电脑，因为它有很多事情做不了，所以一个完全集成了英伟达显卡的x86（一种复杂指令集计算机架构，主导了个人电脑市场）笔记本电脑，可能会是市场上最好的产品。

Eric: Um, so are you optimistic? How how do you think this will go?

埃里克: 嗯，所以你乐观吗？你觉得这事会怎么发展？

Dylan: I mean, sure. I mean, I hope I hope, right? I'm I'm I'm a perpetual optimist on Intel because uh I have to be I was thinking that uh the structure of the deal that at least like a lot of the government folks and uh Intel were sort of trying to go for was people give you know big customers and the biggest suppliers directly give capital to Intel. Um, but this is sort of the other way around where they're buying some of the stock uh having some ownership, but they're not really like diluting the other shareholders and then the other shareholders will get diluted slash everyone will get diluted when Intel finally does raise the capital from the capital markets.

迪伦: 当然。我的意思是，我希望如此，对吧？我对英特尔永远是个乐观主义者，因为我必须是。我之前认为，至少很多政府人士和英特尔所寻求的交易结构是，大客户和最大的供应商直接给英特尔注资。但现在这个方式有点反过来，他们购买一些股票，获得一些所有权，但并没有真正稀释其他股东的股份。当英特尔最终从资本市场融资时，其他股东以及所有人都会被稀释。

Dylan: But because they've announced these deals and they're pretty small, right? Five billion Nvidia, two billion Soft Bank, um, US government was 10. Um, you know, the these are still relatively small.

迪伦: 但因为他们宣布的这些交易规模都相当小，对吧？英伟达50亿，软银20亿，美国政府100亿。这些数额仍然相对较小。

Eric: Pretty small. Yeah.

埃里克: 相当小，是的。

Dylan: Yeah. On the nature of things, right? I mean like uh you know last time I think I said Intel needs like $50 billion right now. Now when they go to the capital markets it's it's better and and hopefully they get another you know couple of these announcements maybe uh you know there's there's all sorts of speculation that Trump is involved in you know sort of um getting these companies to invest uh Nvidia um and now now you know the government as well of course and now you know is Apple going to come invest right and also do something with Intel or who else will come in and that'll really boost investor confidence and they can dilute slash go get debt.

迪伦: 是的，就事物的本质而言。我的意思是，上次我好像说过英特尔现在需要大约500亿美元。现在当他们去资本市场时，情况会好一些。希望他们还能再宣布几笔这样的交易。有很多猜测说特朗普参与其中，促使这些公司投资，包括英伟达，当然现在还有政府。那么，苹果会来投资并与英特尔合作吗？或者还有谁会加入？这会极大地提振投资者信心，然后他们就可以稀释股份或去借债了。

Eric: like a Warren Buffett coming into a stock. The Jensen is like the Buffett effect. So, the semiconductor world.

埃里克: 就像沃伦·巴菲特入股一样。黄仁勋（Jensen）就像是半导体界的“巴菲特效应”。

Implications for Competitors: AMD and ARM

Eric: Guido, you were the CTO of the Intel data center and AI business unit. Yep. What are your thoughts?

埃里克: 吉多，你曾是英特尔数据中心和人工智能事业部的首席技术官。是的。你有什么看法？

Guido: I think it's really good for customers and consumers in the short term, right? Having having both Intel and like specifically for the laptop market, right? Having the two collaborate is is amazing. Um it I wonder what's going to happen with any of the internal graphics or AI products at Intel, right? They might just push a reset and give up on that for now, right? They currently don't have anything competitive, right? There was the Gaudi 3 that's more or less done, right? There was the internal graphics chips which never competed really at the high end, right? So from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense, right? It's um for for for both sides. Look, I think the for Intel, they needed a breath of fresh air, right? They were sort of desperate. So I think it's it's a very good thing.

吉多: 我认为短期内这对客户和消费者来说非常好。让英特尔和英伟达合作，尤其是在笔记本电脑市场，这太棒了。我想知道英特尔内部的图形或AI产品会怎么样？他们可能暂时会按下重置键，放弃这些。他们目前没有任何有竞争力的产品。之前的Gaudi 3基本上已经完结了。内部的图形芯片也从未真正在高端市场竞争过。所以从这个角度看，这次合作对双方都非常有意义。听着，我认为对英特尔来说，他们需要一股新鲜空气，他们当时有点绝望了。所以我认为这是件非常好的事。

Guido: I think AMD is screwed, right? I mean, they're you're just if if your two arch nemesis suddenly team up, right? That's the worst possible news you can have, right? They were already struggling, right? Their their cards are good. Their software stack is not, right? They they were getting very limited traction, right? They now they now have a bigger problem that side.

吉多: 我认为AMD（超威半导体：英特尔和英伟达的主要竞争对手）完蛋了，对吧？我的意思是，如果你两个最大的死对头突然联手，那对你来说就是最坏的消息了。他们本来就已经在挣扎了。他们的显卡硬件不错，但软件生态不行。他们获得的市场关注非常有限。现在他们面临一个更大的问题。

Guido: I think ARM is a little bit screwed as well, right? Because they their their biggest selling point was sort of like look, we can partner with everybody that doesn't want to partner with Intel. And there in a sense they're number one, you know, like Nvidia is probably the most dangerous of the future CPU competitors, right? And so they now suddenly have access to Intel technologies and might get in that direction. It it remixes the card, right? It's it's I did not see this coming. I think it's it's amazing development.

吉多: 我认为ARM也有点麻烦了。因为他们最大的卖点就是，“看，我们可以和所有不想和英特尔合作的公司合作。”而在某种意义上，英伟达可能是未来CPU竞争者中最危险的一个。现在他们突然可以接触到英特尔的技术，并可能朝那个方向发展。这重新洗牌了，我完全没预料到。我认为这是一个惊人的发展。

China's AI Chip Ambitions: The Huawei Factor

Eric: would love your thoughts on everything that's going on from the China front, right? And this kind of coupled with Deep Seek saying their next models are going to be on domestically produced Chinese chips. the Chinese government uh kind of banning companies from buying the uh produced specifically for China Nvidia chips. So there's just sort of a lot of dominoes falling right now and the semi market in China. But would love your take overall and I mean drill into some uh detail.

埃里克: 希望听听你对中国方面正在发生的一切的看法。这与Deep Seek声称其下一代模型将使用国产芯片，以及中国政府禁止公司购买英伟达专供中国的芯片等事件联系在一起。现在中国的半导体市场就像多米诺骨牌一样接连倒下。希望听听你的总体看法，并深入一些细节。

Dylan: Yeah, I think when you sort of zoom out to even like you know let's let's let's walk from 2020 because I think it's really important to recognize how cracked Huawei is or even just historically like they've always been really good. Sure, initially they stole like Cisco uh source code and firmware and all this stuff, but then they rapidly passed them up as well as every other telecom company. In 2020, they released uh an Ascend chip and submitted to impartial public benchmarks and they were the first to bring 7nm AI chips to market. They were the first to um have that right now. You could still say Nvidia was ahead uh but the gap was like like nothing, right? And this is when they could access the full foreign supply chain. This was when they just passed Apple to be TSMC's largest customer.

迪伦: 是的，我认为当你把视野拉远，甚至回到2020年，你会发现认识到华为有多么强大是非常重要的，即使从历史上看，他们也一直非常出色。当然，最初他们窃取了像思科的源代码和固件之类的东西，但之后他们迅速超越了思科以及所有其他电信公司。2020年，他们发布了**昇腾（Ascend）芯片，并提交给公正的公开基准测试，成为第一个将7纳米AI芯片推向市场的公司。他们是第一个做到这一点的。你仍然可以说英伟达当时领先，但差距微乎其微。而那时他们还能够接触到完整的外国供应链，当时他们刚刚超过苹果，成为台积电（TSMC）**的最大客户。

Dylan: Um and then they were also in parallel trying to go through shell companies to manufacture uh at TSMC and acquire memory from Korea and so on and so forth. So by the end of 24 they had this had gotten in full swing and it was uh caught, right? It was caught and they finally shut it down. But they were able to acquire three million uh chips, 2.9 million chips from TSMC through these other entities, right? Uh roughly $500 million worth of orders. Um which which ends up being a billion dollar fine that the US government gave TSMC if I recall correctly or at least there was a Reuters article.

迪伦: 与此同时，他们还试图通过空壳公司在台积电制造芯片，并从韩国获取内存等等。到2024年底，这种操作已经全面展开并最终被发现和制止了。但他们通过这些实体成功从台积电获得了三百万片芯片，确切地说是290万片，订单价值约5亿美元。如果我没记错的话，这最终导致美国政府对台积电处以10亿美元的罚款，至少路透社有相关报道。

Dylan: And so now you have China saying, "Hey, like we don't need Nvidia. We have domestic alternatives, right? Whether it be Huawei or Cambricon. Um these companies have, you know, capacity, but most of this capacity is de is still foreign produced, right? whether it be wafers from TSMC uh memory from Korea, right? Samsung and SK Hynix. So the question is sort of like how much can they do domestically and there's sort of two fronts there right there's the logic i.e replacing TSMC and there's the memory i.e replacing Hynix, Samsung, Micron.

迪伦: 所以现在中国在说：“嘿，我们不需要英伟达了，我们有国产替代品，无论是华为还是寒武纪。”这些公司有产能，但大部分产能仍然依赖国外，比如台积电的晶圆，韩国的三星和SK海力士的内存。所以问题是，他们在国内能做到什么程度？这里有两条战线：一是逻辑芯片，即替代台积电；二是内存，即替代海力士、三星、美光。

Dylan: And the the aspect of Huawei's announcement that was surprising was that they're doing custom memory, right? Yeah, that's that's the part that is sort of like, hey, this is really exciting. They announced, you know, two different types of chips for next year. Um, one that's focused on recommendation systems and prefill and then one that's focused on uh decode.

迪伦: 华为这次发布中最令人惊讶的一点是他们正在做定制内存。是的，这部分真的非常令人兴奋。他们宣布了明年将推出两种不同类型的芯片，一种专注于推荐系统和prefill（预填充：在生成第一个token前处理输入上下文的过程），另一种则专注于decode（解码：逐个生成输出token的过程）。

The Global GPU Supply Chain and Geopolitical Chess

Eric: Is there is there an angle here about a negotiation angle as well because currently there's still discussions ongoing what exactly are the boundaries what can be exported to China. So these are sort of well-timed announcements if you want to make a point um that you know US should allow more exports is do you think that's a factor or not?

埃里克: 这里面是否存在一个谈判的角度？因为目前关于究竟哪些东西可以出口到中国的界限仍在讨论中。所以，如果你想表明美国应该允许更多出口，这些公告的时机似乎恰到好处。你认为这是一个因素吗？

Dylan: Yeah. So, so I, you know, in the report we did a few weeks ago about uh the production capacity of Huawei um and the supply chain, there was a bit in there that we wrote about how you know honestly like if you are China and you want Nvidia, you do want Nvidia chips actually, how do you play this, right? And and and it's by it's by hyping up your domestic supply chain and it's by it's like it's like yes, we can do everything.

迪伦: 是的。所以，你知道，在我们几周前关于华为产能和供应链的报告中，我们写到了一点，老实说，如果你是中国，并且你确实想要英伟达的芯片，你该怎么玩这场游戏？答案就是通过大肆宣传你的国内供应链，表现出“是的，我们什么都能做”的样子。

Dylan: Huawei announced the most crazy possible. announced seven years of or three years of roadmaps that are so they read your report basic question. I think I think they do I mean they were already banned and then like say we're banning Nvidia right like and then it's like then the government official is going to think alongside sort of like lobbying from domestic players like of course we want to ship them better AI chips like we're losing this market we can't lose this market and it's sort of like it is 10,000 IQ right and and and we're here playing checkers while they're playing chess.

迪伦: 华为宣布了最疯狂的计划，发布了未来七年或三年的路线图。他们基本上是读了你的报告吧？我认为他们确实是这么做的。我的意思是，他们已经被禁了，然后又说“我们要禁止英伟达”，这样一来，美国政府官员就会和国内游说者一起思考：“我们当然想卖给他们更好的AI芯片，我们正在失去这个市场，我们不能失去这个市场。”这就像是智商一万的游戏，我们在这里下跳棋，而他们在下国际象棋。

Eric: Well, so I guess negotiating chip aside, um, in that report you talked about HBM or high bandwidth memory being a bottleneck to Huawei, um, to your point on one of the surprising aspects of the announcement. Do you do you think it's credible that it's no longer a bottleneck based on what they're saying or are they is it just hype?

埃里克: 好吧，撇开谈判筹码不谈，在那份报告中，你提到HBM（高带宽内存）是华为的一个瓶颈。联系到你刚才说的发布会中令人惊讶的一点，你认为根据他们所说的，这不再是一个瓶颈的可信度有多高？还是说这只是炒作？

Dylan: I think I think production capacity wise it is still absolutely a bottleneck. They um certain types of equipment required for making HBM need to be imported. They're working on domestic solutions, but as far as we know, they have not imported enough equipment for this.

迪伦: 我认为从产能上讲，这绝对仍然是一个瓶颈。制造HBM所需的某些类型的设备需要进口。他们正在研发国产解决方案，但据我们所知，他们还没有进口足够的设备来满足需求。

Nvidia's Moat and Jensen's Leadership

Eric: I haven't been following the semi market as closely as you have. I probably started with the A100. Um, and I I remember helping Gnome at Character, this is summer of June 2023, um, chase down GPUs and the only thing that mattered at that time was delivery date because there was a huge capacity crunch.

埃里克: 我没有像你那样密切关注半导体市场。我大概是从A100开始的。我记得在2023年6月的夏天，帮助Character AI的Noam寻找GPU，当时唯一重要的事情就是交付日期，因为产能极度紧张。

Dylan: So, so, so just to be clear, my opinion on how you buy GPUs is that it's like buying cocaine um or any other drug. This is described to me, not me. I don't buy cocaine. Someone tells me this. I'm like, "Holy it's right." You call up a couple people, you text a couple people, you ask, "Yo, how much you got? What's the price?"

迪伦: 所以，要说清楚，我对于如何购买GPU的看法是，这就像买可卡因或其他毒品。这是别人向我描述的，不是我本人，我不买可卡因。有人这么告诉我，我当时就觉得：“天哪，太对了。”你给几个人打电话，给几个人发短信，问：“嘿，你手上有多少货？什么价？”

Eric: I know a guy.

埃里克: 我认识一个人。

Dylan: I know a guy.

迪伦: 我认识一个人。

The Future of AI Hardware and GPU Cycles

Eric: what era are we in now with Blackwells coming online? Are we sort of back to the summer 2023 era and it's that's kind of the the cycle uh that we've just entered or what what's sort of your view on where we are?

埃里克: 随着Blackwell架构的上线，我们现在处于一个什么样的时代？我们是否又回到了2023年夏天的那个阶段，进入了那样一个周期？或者说，你对我们目前所处的位置有什么看法？

Dylan: So for a very good question for one of your port codes um we we were like you know after their difficulties with Amazon we tried to we were like okay let's let's actually like get you GPUs. the original deals we got you were gone, but like here's some other deals, right? It turned out that um multiple major NeoClouds had sold out of hopper capacity. Um and and their Blackwell capacity comes online in a few months. Um so it's it's a bit of a challenge, right, in that due to inference.

迪伦: 这是一个非常好的问题。对于你的一个投资组合公司，在他们与亚马逊遇到困难后，我们曾试图帮他们搞定GPU。我们最初帮他们谈的交易黄了，但这里还有些别的选择。结果发现，好几家主要的“新云服务商”（NeoClouds）的Hopper架构GPU容量已经卖光了。而他们的Blackwell容量要几个月后才能上线。所以这有点挑战，主要原因是推理需求的激增。

Dylan: Um inference demand has been skyrocketing this year, right? Reasoning models. Yeah, these these reasoning models, the revenue um it's been skyrocketing this year. And then and then also like there's a bit of like the you know blackwell comes online but it's hard to deploy so it takes a little you know there's a learning curve to deploying it. So there was like there was like this gap of like how many GPUs are coming onto the market right as revenue starting to inflect and so a lot of capacity got sucked up right and actually prices for Hopper bottomed like three or four months ago or like five or six months ago. Yeah. and actually they've like crept up a little bit now.

迪伦: 推理需求今年一直在飙升，对吧？推理模型。是的，这些推理模型带来的收入今年一直在飞涨。然后，Blackwell虽然上线了，但部署起来很困难，所以需要一点时间，有一个部署的学习曲线。所以，在收入开始拐点向上的时候，市场上出现的GPU数量就存在一个缺口，导致大量产能被消耗掉了。实际上，Hopper的价格在三四个月前，或者说五六个月前就已经触底了。是的，现在价格实际上已经悄悄回升了一点。

Dylan: I do I don't think we're quite 2023 2024 era of uh GPUs are tight, but certainly if you want to if you want like just a few GPUs, it's easy. Uh but if you want a lot, it's it's it's hard. Yeah. Like you you can't get capacity that instantly.

迪伦: 我不认为我们完全回到了2023-2024年那种GPU供应紧张的时代，但可以肯定的是，如果你只想要几块GPU，那很容易。但如果你想要很多，那就很难了。是的，你无法立即获得那么多产能。