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Comment by zeven7 | Hacker News Reader

I've missed the stories on this until now. Is it known (and is there an ELI5) how they were able to do it so much more efficiently?

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This article has good background, context, and explanations [1] They skipped CUDA and instead used PTX which is a lower level instruction set where they were able to implement more performant cross-chip comms to make up for the less-performant H800 chips.

[1]: https://stratechery.com/2025/deepseek-faq/

So can people do the same in SPIR for OpenCL or amdgcn?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Portable_Intermediate...

https://www.khronos.org/spir/

Or even better in the unified language like SYCL?

https://cdrdv2-public.intel.com/786536/Heidelberg_IWOCL__SYC...

> Moreover, if you actually did the math on the previous question, you would realize that DeepSeek actually had an excess of computing; that’s because DeepSeek actually programmed 20 of the 132 processing units on each H800 specifically to manage cross-chip communications. This is actually impossible to do in CUDA.

You can do this just fine in CUDA, no PTX required. Of course all the major shops are using inline PTX at the very least to access the Tensor cores effectively.

IIUC they released a paper, it's partially algorithmic improvements partially good old low level optimization.

There's something to be said about the idea that instead of just dumping oceans of money into buying Nvidia cards they just...optimized what they had

I'd say the wider industry could learn a thing or two, but as other commentors have joked. The line must go up

The double edged sword of export controls.

Creativity always delivers when minds are constrained.

Is that what we can call Project2025?

Creativity from constrained minds?

surely more relevant comments could exist in the aether of the internet.

Your reply doesn't read like a refute to me, mnky9800n.

Ah but why care about efficiency when you have basically unlimited investor money?

Reminds me of Japanese cars and the OPEC boycott in the 1970s...

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