不能说的秘密

一 |     DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers union significantly escalated its walkout against Detroit's Three automakers, shutting down Ford's largest factory and threatening Jeep maker Stellantis.In a surprise move Wednesday night, 8,700 members left their jobs at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant in Louisville.And Thursday morning, union President Shawn Fain hinted at further action against Stellantis. “Here's to hoping talks at Stellantis today are more productive than Ford yesterday,” Fain wrote on X, formerly Twitter, without saying what might happen.Ford's truck plant makes heavy-duty F-Series pickup trucks and large Ford and Lincoln SUVs, hitting the company's most lucrative products. The vehicles made at the plant generate $25 billion per year in revenue, the company said in a statement.Fain said in a statement that the union has waited long enough “but Ford hasn’t gotten the message” to bargain for a fair contract. “If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it,” Fain said.The strike came nearly four weeks after the union began its walkouts against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis on Sept. 15, with one assembly plant from each company. The company, however, called the strike expansion “grossly irresponsible” and said it has made strong wage and benefit offers to the union. It said the move puts about a dozen other Ford facilities at risk, as well as parts supply plants that together employ over 100,000 people.A Ford executive said the union called a meeting at the company's Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters Wednesday afternoon where Fain asked if the company had another offer. High-ranking Ford executives responded that they are working on possibly bringing electric vehicle battery plants into the UAW national contract, essentially making them unionized. But they didn't have a significantly different economic offer, the executive said. Fain was told the company put a strong offer on the table, but there wasn't a lot of room to increase it and keep it affordable for the business, the executive said.Fain responded by saying, if that's the company's best offer, “You just lost Kentucky Truck Plant,” said the executive. The meeting only lasted about 15 minutes, he said. In a video, Fain said the union moved because Ford didn't change its offer. “We've been very patient working with the company on this,” he said. “They have not met expectations, they're not even coming to the table on it.”The escalation against Ford shows that Fain is trying to increase pressure on the company, said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University who follows labor issues.But Ford and the other automakers have made concessions and raised wage offers, he said. The companies, he said, “may have reached their resistance points to varying degrees.” Executives, he said, have bottom line positions they can’t cross in terms of staying competitive with other automakers.Fain, Masters said, likely is testing how far he needs to push Ford before going to “full throttle,” by taking all 57,000 Ford members out on strike.The union’s move doesn’t leave him optimistic for a quick end to the strikes, Masters said. “I think the issues that remain on the table are quite thorny,” he said, pointing to union demands that all workers get defined benefit pensions and health insurance when they retire.The UAW expanded its strikes on Sept. 22, adding 38 GM and Stellantis parts warehouses. Assembly plants from Ford and GM were added the week after that. The Kentucky strike brings to 33,700 the number of workers on strike against the three automakers.Thus far, the union has decided to target a small number of plants from each company rather than have all 146,000 UAW members at the automakers go on strike at the same time.Last week, the union reported progress in the talks and decided not to add any more plants. This came after GM agreed to bring joint-venture electric vehicle battery factories into the national master contract, almost assuring that the plants will be unionized.Battery plants are a major point of contention in the negotiations. The UAW wants those plants to be unionized to assure jobs and top wages for workers who will be displaced by the industry’s ongoing transition to electric vehicles.Since the start of the strike, the three Detroit automakers have laid off roughly 4,800 workers at factories that are not among the plants that have been hit by the UAW strikes.The companies say the strikes have forced them to impose those layoffs. They note that the job cuts have occurred mainly at factories that make parts for assembly plants that were closed by strikes.The UAW rejects that argument. It contends that the layoffs are unjustified and were imposed as part of the companies' pressure campaign to persuade UAW members to accept less in negotiations with automakers. The factories affected by layoffs are in six states: Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, Indiana and New York. Sam Fiorani, an analyst with AutoForecast Solutions, a consulting firm, said he thinks the layoffs reflect a simple reality: The automakers are losing money because of the strikes. By slowing or idling factories that are running below their capacities because of strike-related parts shortages, Fiorani said, the companies can mitigate further losses.“It doesn’t make sense to keep running at 30% or 40% of capacity when it normally runs at 100%,” he said. Striking workers are receiving $500 a week from the union’s strike pay fund. In some states, laid-off workers could qualify for state unemployment aid, which, depending on a variety of circumstances, could be less or more than $500 a week. Fiorani said that as the strikes widen, more workers will likely be laid off at non-striking plants. Separate companies that manufacture parts for the automakers are likely to have laid off workers but might not report them publicly, said Patrick Anderson, CEO of the Anderson Economic Group in Lansing, Michigan. A survey of parts supply companies by a trade association called MEMA Original Equipment Suppliers found that 30% of members have laid off workers and that more than 60% expect to start layoffs in mid-October.。    本文来源：时代周报 作者：朱成呈          今年WAIC，“超节点”在现场火了。         走进世博展览馆，华为、阿里巴巴、百度、中兴通讯、中科曙光、天数智芯、沐曦股份、摩尔线程等国产算力厂商，几乎都把各自最新的超节点产品摆在展台最显眼的位置。         一排排没有屏幕的黑色机柜，成为最引人关注的展品之一。         真武M890×磐久AL128超节点 时代周报记者摄          时代周报记者注意到，中科曙光带来全国产十万卡AI超集群"曙光8000（登峰）"，阿里巴巴展示"真武M890×磐久AL128超节点"，中兴通讯推出OEX超节点，百度带来天池512超节点，沐曦股份展示曦景S600超节点，壁仞科技发布支持1024卡Scale-up扩展的下一代NPO光互连分布式解耦架构超节点，华为则首次线下展示1024卡昇腾950超节点真机。         这些外观并不起眼的黑色机柜前，许多观众举着手机排队拍照，不少厂商甚至安排机器人在机柜旁互动，让原本冰冷的算力设备成为展会"打卡点"。         这种变化并非偶然。过去几年，AI产业竞争更多集中在单颗芯片的算力、功耗和制程；而随着大模型训练和推理迈入万卡、十万卡时代，行业开始意识到，仅有高性能芯片已经不足以支撑模型持续扩张。如何将数百、数千甚至上万张AI卡高效连接，并通过网络、软件和调度系统充分释放集群性能，正成为新的竞争重点。

二 |          换句话说，AI产业竞争正逐渐从芯片本身，转向芯片之上的系统能力。

三 |          这一趋势同样体现在大会官方评选中。今年WAIC三项"镇馆之宝"均与超节点相关，分别为中科曙光AI超集群"曙光8000（登峰）"、阿里巴巴"真武M890×磐久AL128超节点"以及中兴通讯"OEX超节点"。         在业内人士看来，这不仅意味着几款产品获得认可，更意味着国产AI算力竞争正在进入新的阶段。         "随着大模型加快进入各类业务场景，算力需求正从训练进一步扩展至推理和边端计算。峰值性能仍是重要指标，但产品的实际表现，越来越取决于芯片、软件、集群和应用之间的协同效率。"天数智芯副总裁邹翾在WAIC期间表示。

四 |          “单卡时代”过去了？          如果说过去AI产业竞争比拼的是发动机，那么如今比拼的更像是一整套动力系统。         随着模型参数规模持续增长，先进大模型训练往往需要数万张GPU协同运行。此时，真正影响训练效率的，不再只是单颗GPU性能，而是整个系统如何组织这些GPU完成高效协同计算。         曦景S600超节点 时代周报记者摄          业内通常将通过高速互连，将数百甚至上千张AI卡组织成统一计算资源池的系统称为"超节点"。例如，摩尔线程MTT C256 超节点，就是用一层scale-up网络把256张GPU变成一台数据中心级计算机。

五 |          不过，超节点远非简单地将大量GPU堆叠在一起。

六 | 一名摩尔线程现场工作人员向时代周报记者表示，“我们通过高效液冷散热、三盲插设计、完善的RAS机制和集群管理系统，来保障超节点在大规模部署下的稳定性和可维护性。这是基于真实万卡级训练经验沉淀下来的产品化能力，而非单纯的概念堆砌。”          不同厂商也在尝试不同的系统方案。天数智芯现场工作人员向时代周报记者称，天数超节点面向大模型训练与高并发推理场景，以国产通用GPU为核心，实现144芯高速全互联，通过高带宽互联、统一资源调度和软硬件协同优化，提供稳定、可靠、可扩展的高质量算力。         阿里云现场方面，一名工作人员则表示，磐久AL128超节点服务器是阿里云面向AI大模型时代打造的硬件基座，单柜集成128颗芯片，通过自研ALink互连架构，最大化GPU集群的协同计算效率。         在摩尔线程高级副总裁董龙飞看来，超节点要解决的是在一个大的系统里，如何把一个更大的模型，更大的上下文窗口放进来，还可以更快的推理出来。因为推理的速度慢了之后，调用工具就非常慢，超节点主要是为解决这个问题。         业内人士呼吁算力产业开放          相比单颗芯片，超节点竞争涉及的环节更多，也更加依赖产业链协同。         天数智芯副总裁宋煜认为，对通用GPU而言，实验室指标能够反映部分性能，但客户业务中的长期运行，更能检验产品在复杂负载和系统协同下的实际能力。

七 | 算力能否转化为效率改善、成本下降和资源利用率提升，是衡量其产业价值的重要标准。         这意味着，行业评价标准也正在发生变化。

八 |          过去，人们关注TOPS、TFLOPS等芯片参数；如今，更关注训练吞吐率、网络时延、GPU利用率、集群稳定性以及整体拥有成本等系统指标。         由于一套成熟的超节点涉及芯片、交换网络、光互连、液冷、软件平台等多个环节，仅依靠一家企业已很难完成全部能力建设，开放生态因此成为国产算力发展的另一条主线。         中兴OEX超节点 时代周报记者摄          今年WAIC期间，中兴通讯联合壁仞科技、沐曦股份、燧原科技、天数智芯等合作伙伴，共同推出基于OEX+dOCS架构的国产高性能Matrix超节点，正是这一趋势的体现。

九 |          曦智科技创始人、董事长沈亦晨认为，当前最亟需补强的，是在庞大算力产业链中构建真正开放的产业生态，使计算、存储、交换、软件、应用等各环节的优秀企业最大化发挥各自优势，共同驱动中国算力基础设施的升级。         如果说芯片时代，比拼的是单点技术突破，那么系统时代，比拼的则是整个产业链的协同能力。

十 |          而超节点，也只是更大规模AI基础设施的起点。         “超节点更多是一个高密度的计算单元，把大量AI加速卡通过高速互连组织在一起，相当于把一台‘超级服务器’做得更强。”一名中科曙光技术工程师向时代周报记者解释，而超集群是在超节点基础上，通过高速网络把成百上千个超节点连接起来，实现十万卡级资源统一调度和协同运行，是一个完整的AI基础设施系统。         该技术工程师进一步指出，真正的挑战不在节点内部，而在节点之间。随着集群规模从千卡、万卡走向十万卡，跨节点通信会成为影响训练效率和系统稳定性的关键因素。