> The current hardware floor is nearer to the RTX 2080 TI's $1k/unit for 125 tensor-core TFLOPS, and that gives you $25/pflops-d.
It's definitely true that the RTX 2080 Ti would be more efficient money-wise, but the Tensor Cores are not going to get you the advertised speedup. Those speedups can only be reached in ideal circumstances.
Nevertheless, the article as a whole makes a very good point. The thing that is most scary about this is that it would become very hard for new players to enter the space. Large incumbents would be the only ones able to make the investments necessary to build competitive AI. Because of that, I really hope the author isn't right - unfortunately they probably are.
It's definitely true that the RTX 2080 Ti would be more efficient money-wise, but the Tensor Cores are not going to get you the advertised speedup. Those speedups can only be reached in ideal circumstances.
Nevertheless, the article as a whole makes a very good point. The thing that is most scary about this is that it would become very hard for new players to enter the space. Large incumbents would be the only ones able to make the investments necessary to build competitive AI. Because of that, I really hope the author isn't right - unfortunately they probably are.