AMD TinyBox project put on hold due to GPU instability in AI workloads — firm publicly considering using Intel GPUs

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Founder George Hotz boldly gave AMD a deadline of the 'end of the week.'

TinyBox development
(Image credit: Tiny Corp)

Tiny Corp continues to publicly grumble about development issues it is having with its AMD-based TinyBox system. The corporation and its founder, George Hotz, have repeatedly been quite vociferous on social media about what they see as AMD's shortcomings. In the latest flare-up, Tiny Corp has hinted at abandoning AMD GPUs to explore Intel or even Nvidia hardware. Hotz has again asked AMD to open source Radeon firmware — with a deadline of the "end of the week" attached.

The TinyBox is designed to democratize AI acceleration by leveraging six Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards in a 12U rack case. It costs just a drop in the ocean (around $15,000) compared to systems based on enterprise hardware. However, the savings are largely made by using gamer hardware in a data center-targeted solution. AMD has been outwardly cooperative in reaction to previous social media skirmishes, but one wonders if it is really in its interest to make gaming hardware enterprise-ready, as it already has solutions for the data center market.

Giving up on Radeon? (Image credit: Tiny Corp)

You can get a closer look at the most recent Tiny Corp vs. AMD skirmish in the Tweet/X post above. Tiny Corp is trying to publicly shame AMD, again, and is framing open-sourcing its Radeon firmware as the only reasonable choice available to AMD. The company also complains about the AMD drivers and claims that the issues can be fixed to make the AMD TinyBox "amazing" — if only AMD would cooperate.

Another thread within the lengthy public Tweet mentions AMD's rivals, as if this might spur AMD into action. The Tweet mentions TinyBox machines leveraging Intel Arc GPUs, adding XMX support, considering Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs, and contrasts AMD's business practices with the "open" Tenstorrent.

A few follow-up Tweets by Tiny Corp take a softer tone. This one seems grateful to AMD for engaging and trying to fix the driver and related issues. However, this one throws some shade on the AMD driver team, suggesting fixes can't be made because they're beyond the guile of the development team (and not due to any unwillingness).

Minnow gives $300 billion dollar corporation a deadline. (Image credit: Future)

Tiny Corp founder George Hotz made a separate but related statement earlier today after a Twitter-based tech enthusiast instructed Lisa Su to hire him (see image above). Hotz replied that he doesn't need further employment, but requested AMD "open source the 7900XTX firmware+docs and remove the signature check." In a bold further move, Hotz added the "end of the week" deadline for AMD.

Somehow, we don't think this is the end of the Tiny Corp and AMD saga.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Pierce2623
    I’d tell him go buy up all the cheap a770s nobody wants since that’s what he’s threatening to do apparently. Six 7900xtx and an Epyc for $15k was a terrible price to begin with. I also wonder who’s paying the site to run these nonsense stories.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    Nvidia?

    This guy demanding open firmware then threatening to jump ship to Nvidia is absolutely trolling. I've seen people get banned for lessor things on web forums. Nvidia isn't ever going to open its firmware. This is seriously a joke from Mr. Hotz and its not funny.

    But Intel, I can't say I know - does Intel open its firmware blobs? Besides, Intel's drivers are not exactly the greatest are they? Mr. Hotz may be looking at no path forward when it comes to firmware blobs and Lisa Su's promise is already the best he is going to get.

    Something else has to be afoot here. Maybe he wants a better deal on a large batch of AMD GPUs incoming. RX 7000 refresh soon?
    Reply
  • jlake3
    Oh boy, it’s these guys again.
    Tiny Corp has hinted at abandoning AMD GPUs to explore Intel or even Nvidia hardware.
    Yeah… switching to Nvidia is an empty threat. They’re never gonna support this, and would quite likely attempt legal action. Intel has less to lose in the GPU space, but the A770 isn’t exactly equivalent in compute or memory capacity?
    open source the 7900XTX firmware+docs and remove the signature check
    I’m not an expert… but allowing unsigned firmware seems like a questionable idea these days? Especially for a product TinyCorp is selling to enterprise customers?
    asked AMD to open source Radeon firmware — with a deadline of the "end of the week" attached.
    This feels like it is something that takes a while, if it’s possible at all? I’d think it would need combed over to make sure it doesn’t leak trade secrets somehow, then run by legal for patent and licensing concerns.

    I can understand that AMD doesn’t like the optics of telling an AI company to pound sand, but these guys really seem to think the world revolves around them, and that buying gaming cards entitles them to a priority line to engineering to assist with their off-label use case.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    ezst036 said:
    This guy demanding open firmware then threatening to jump ship to Nvidia is absolutely trolling.
    On the other hand, they wouldn't need to: the demand to AMD was under the veil of "if you're not going to fix it. let us fix it ourselves". One thing Nvidia has never been accused of are unstable Cuda drivers or lack of developer support.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    AMD is trying their best not to answer "if you used enterprise hardware, the issues would already be fixed". Asking a hardware vendor to open source their firmware, full of industrial secrets, is either stupid, evil or attention-seeking. Either they deal with the issues in another way (there is always another software path to follow), or give up business (Nvidia is out of the question, and Intel doesn't have hardware that powerful).
    Reply
  • greenreaper
    I mean, SHARK's Stable Diffusion distro works for me on the latest drivers, if only in ROCm driver mode - all I have is a Ryzen 7600 with its 2 CU iGPU. Not the fastest, though; each iteration is measured in seconds.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Pierce2623 said:
    I’d tell him go buy up all the cheap a770s nobody wants since that’s what he’s threatening to do apparently.
    The reason he hasn't is that he knows the reduced performance per card would seriously hit the value proposition of his solution. His box can probably fit only 6x 2-slot cards. Fitting more would be a challenge and probably add a lot of cost.

    If he used Nvidia, that would push up his BoM costs to like $18k, since he would have to use their workstation cards (or else be at risk of violating CUDA EULA).

    Pierce2623 said:
    Six 7900xtx and an Epyc for $15k was a terrible price to begin with.
    In the last article, I priced it out and hardware of his specs would cost about $10.5k, if you bought them on Newegg. Once you consider the support & warranty costs he would incur, $15k is not at all unreasonable.

    Pierce2623 said:
    I also wonder who’s paying the site to run these nonsense stories.
    Advertisers. Drama draws clicks.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    ezst036 said:
    This guy demanding open firmware then threatening to jump ship to Nvidia is absolutely trolling.
    LOL, good call!

    ezst036 said:
    But Intel, I can't say I know - does Intel open its firmware blobs? Besides, Intel's drivers are not exactly the greatest are they?
    No, Intel doesn't (and I dare say won't) open its firmware. I think their compute stack is in better shape than their gaming stack, software-wise.

    ezst036 said:
    Something else has to be afoot here. Maybe he wants a better deal on a large batch of AMD GPUs incoming. RX 7000 refresh soon?
    No, I think he just has a disproportionate view of his importance and the value to AMD of what he's doing. There's no way they're going to cut him any special deals, especially given his behavior. He'll probably get the exact same deals as any reseller or OEM who buys in similar volumes.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    jlake3 said:
    This feels like it is something that takes a while, if it’s possible at all? I’d think it would need combed over to make sure it doesn’t leak trade secrets somehow, then run by legal for patent and licensing concerns.
    I was going to say the exact same thing. This is an extremely compressed timescale for open sourcing something. It's actually plausible that a partner could get access to AMD's firmware source, but under NDA. Then, they might have a better shot at debugging & fixing their problems, but I sort of doubt it, as there's usually a big learning curve and bugs like he's hitting tend to be very challenging to find.

    I wonder if he's just asking for AMD to open source it as a negotiating position and maybe to draw more public support for his position. I think he'd be satisfied if they just fixed whatever bug he's hitting.

    jlake3 said:
    I can understand that AMD doesn’t like the optics of telling an AI company to pound sand, but these guys really seem to think the world revolves around them, and that buying gaming cards entitles them to a priority line to engineering to assist with their off-label use case.
    100% agree.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    I need popcorn for when AMD just starts ignoring him and his head explodes.
    Reply