Well GPUs are simply closing in on CPUs, architectural wise.
Intel announced & presented their stuff during Total Chaos 2019 days in Sofia. NVidia is slowly adding it on while throwing sand in our eyes. BTW no extra libraries are needed with
Optix7 (everything included in drivers)
AMD is also unifying, combining - hybridizing systems
. An analyst's
comparison of RDNA vs TURING presumes similar.
All this patenting, closed licensing, blackboxing... brings further complexity and had often proved to be a hurdle for development at extreme costs, even businesses lost, companies liquidated. I think majority slowly moves toward open standards - majority thrives on open spaces with free and open minded mentality.
ps
I also find latest AMD's RPR quite good & Corona extremely efficient for what it's intended to do (more machine vs less human working hours and it's clarity, sharpness of an image looks top notch. While Lux is lately a bit on the softer side).
Even the big three (PRMan, Arnold, VRay) and Unity, UE have left great impression.
But practically i find it most important to have effortlessly fluent workflow. Like Corona's for archviz/productviz, C4D for motion graphics, Houdini VFX sims, while for industrial efficiency recently revealed
Side FX's SOLARIS project. And I see hints of BlendLuxCore shaping in similar way.