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The metaverse silicon team? Money really was too cheap in the pandemic.
Is it really surprising that a massive company investing billions into a nascent technology would develop in-house chips for it?
Yes
Ok... Why is it surprising?
Because building a chip design branch is a very large undertaking.
- Chips are expensive to design
- Expensive to manufacture
- you need to buy millions and millions of them
- the lifecycle of a chipset has a much longer tail than their metaverse attempt
It's surprising because they invested all that money on a product they don't know is going to take off (metaverse) and the chips won't be ready for a very long time.
What kind of chip are they even building? There are massive corporations that have spent a very long time building performance, low power cores (Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung) but instead of buying from them they want to reinvent the wheel.
It's surprising because Facebook thinks they can catch up to the other chip design companies which takes an enormous amount of investment over decades. It's not a 1, 2, or 5 year thing.
So, now I'm curious. Can you please explain why you think this is a very normal and unsurprising thing for Facebook to try and do?
Also, are you even a chip designer? Are you even an engineer at all?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
If the cuts are deep, they could hamper Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's project to build augmented and virtual reality products enabling access to a set of immersive virtual worlds known as the "metaverse," particularly the AR glasses that he has predicted "will redefine our relationship with technology."
The FAST unit, which has roughly 600 employees, worked on developing custom chips to equip Meta's devices to perform unique tasks and operate more efficiently, differentiating them from others entering the nascent AR/VR market.
A separate chip-making unit in Meta's infrastructure division focused on artificial intelligence work has likewise hit roadblocks.
Meta currently makes a line of mixed reality headsets called Quest and smart glasses designed with Ray-Ban eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) that can stream video and speak with wearers through a new AI virtual assistant.
A first version of that product is set to be completed next year, although Meta is not initially planning to make it widely available to consumers, the source said.
Meta has slashed around 21,000 jobs since November of last year as it has sought to reassure investors that it was reining in costs amid waning revenue growth, high inflation and concerns that Reality Labs was losing too much money.
The original article contains 482 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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