Lock-step launches lead to lock-in
However, Gogia expressed concerns over the plethora of new Nvidia-based supercomputers — more than 80 announced this year alone. “This is not market success; it is architectural dependence,” he said. “National science agencies are aligning their multi-year roadmaps with Nvidia’s cadence, effectively transitioning from vendor selection to vendor reliance.”
Overall, he was impressed with Nvidia’s featured technologies, although he worries about the future as its dominance continues to increase.
“The breakthroughs showcased at SC25 are extraordinary,” Gogia said, but, “They come with a governance cost. When the entire lifecycle of scientific computation, spanning simulation, AI, data movement, networking, storage, orchestration, and quantum control, becomes anchored to a single vendor’s architecture, autonomy diminishes. CIOs, national labs, and research agencies must now decide whether they are comfortable with a future where the acceleration of science is extraordinary, but the ecosystem shaping it is extraordinarily narrow. Nvidia has offered the world a path to unprecedented capability. It is up to the world to decide whether that path should also be the only one.”
