Ex-xAI researcher Ethan He: finding the right axis to scale matters more than raw compute
ricklamers · x · 2026-09-07
Ethan He, formerly of xAI, notes that "just scale it up" is easier said than done — the crucial part is finding the right axis to scale. Large compute clusters existed long before deep learning, but compute went to scientific computing, weather forecasting, and simulations, and GPUs prioritized FP64. Deep learning is what made AI clusters scale to unprecedented levels.
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