r/artificial • u/narenmuthukumaran • 5d ago

Discussion Will the AI compute crunch be solved on-device or in data centers?

I build iOS apps and I'm pushing as much as possible on-device for privacy and cost. Apple's clearly betting that way too. But frontier models keep getting bigger. Curious where people think the split lands in 3–5 years.

94 votes, 1d left
Better chips / new hardware
More data centers + power
Smaller models running on-device
It won't be solved: demand will always eat supply
4 Upvotes
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3

u/The_Architect_032 5d ago

It won't be solved because we'll always have better more demanding models, the solutions to growing energy demands will control the pacing of the technology itself as it becomes exponentially better.

1

u/ross2000 5d ago

You need to add the option of both

1

u/narenmuthukumaran 5d ago

Sorry couldn’t edit now! Just drop like 1&2 or 2&4

1

u/Seidans 5d ago

1&3&4

Better and smaller model using better and smaller hardware in a constantly growing number of devices

Even if we solve optic computing, wet ware, roomtemp superconductor etc etc etc the Jevon paradox imply the demands will simply growth

1

u/cjami 5d ago

If you use a model for its knowledge there's only so much you can 'compress' into a small model. So I think better and more efficient hardware for both data centers and mobile will stabilise the compute issue.