Post #4703895 · Elektrine

@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems

2026-09-14 18:23 UTC

the growth in infrastructure requirements just to scale models dramatically changes what frontier scaling looks like over time. instead of a relatively smooth progression where each new generation mostly waits on another training run, you get something much more stair-stepped similar to the intel tick-tock model: new accelerator generation (tick) → build out enough capacity → scale the model → optimize around the new bottlenecks (tock) → plateau → wait for the next hardware generation. in other words, the pace of frontier capability starts getting set less by model architecture and more by nvidia, tsmc, hbm supply, networking, power delivery and datacenter construction.

Replies (1)

@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems 2026-09-14 18:28

and this is where dario's new "pacing" narrative becomes useful. if frontier development is going to become naturally gated by hardware generations and datacenter buildout anyway, then a slower release cadence no longer has to look like the scaling story is running out of steam. instead, you can frame that cadence as intentional: we are slowing down because we are "responsible", because we need time for evaluations and safety work, because the frontier must be paced. that is a much better story to tell investors, who are eagerly waiting for a credible path to ROI at this point, than "the next meaningful scaling step has to wait for another generation of accelerators and a few gigawatts of infrastructure."

Open ##4703894