Episode 15: Growth Drivers for Semiconductors in the Datacenter
Ben Bajarin and Jay Goldberg discuss the shifting economics of data center semiconductors, highlighting that while total silicon content is growing, CPU share is declining as GPU, FPGA, and accelerator workloads expand. They analyze how hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are pursuing custom silicon to control roadmaps and solve specific pain points, such as Google's TPU for YouTube, while noting the high risks for startups entering the accelerator market. The conversation emphasizes that heterogeneous compute is driving value, with high-intensity workloads like LLM training justifying expensive chips like Nvidia's H100, whereas commodity workloads remain on cheaper, parallelizable infrastructure.