How Does a Healthy Compute Price Curve Work?

Evan Conrad says a healthy compute price curve is a hump, and it can point either way depending on the buyer. Capacity that is about to reach the present cannot be sold in the past, so unsold time has to drop in price to clear, the way milk about to expire is marked down. The price then rises toward where it wants to sit. Compute further out is worth less, because buyers pay more for a shorter lead time.

A B300 today breaks that smooth picture. Running inference on one can bring in about $40 an hour when the chip is fully used, and that figure is for basically any model. A rough case at about half utilization is near $25 an hour. Buying the same B300s costs about $5 to $6 an hour. One of those prices has to change. A buyer who expects prices to rise may also pay more than planned for capacity that comes online later, in order to lock it in if no further supply can be bought. Which side of the curve appears depends on who is buying.