As a gauge of AI compute demand, we like looking across the full cross-section of GPUs and the term structure. But if we have to pick a single favorite metric, it’s not the H100 rental rate — it’s the A100.
Released in May 2020, this “ancient” chip is still going strong and rented out at near-full capacity (as CoreWeave’s recent earnings call confirmed). A100s are now used predominantly for inference.
The fact that A100 rental rates have held so steady — even as newer and far more powerful GPUs keep coming online — is a clear signal of the unrelenting strength and growth in inference demand.