H100 contract prices up 38% in five months — compute now prices like credit

pdamodaran · x · 2026-11-02

DalalBytes' deep dive on the compute price reset: the H100 one-year contract index rose from $1.70 (Oct 2025) to $2.35 (Mar 2026). Key points:

List prices detached from market: H100 lists at $6.88/hr on AWS and $12.29 on Azure vs a $2.82 neocloud index.
Custom silicon undercuts GPUs: Trainium2 rents at $2.24/chip-hr via Capacity Blocks, Trainium1 at $1.34 on-demand; Google's TPU ladder spans Trillium $2.70 to Ironwood $12.00 ($5.40 with 3-year commitment).
ASIC share: 16% of accelerator dollars this year, shipment share crossing toward 50% in 2027, while NVIDIA still holds 75% of dollars.
Price discovery is back: Nebius' first capacity auction cleared 15% above its highest-ever Blackwell price; spot now resets every 15 minutes.
Compute prices like credit: anchor tenants get prime term rates, the spot tail pays payday rates for revocable capacity.
Cycle verdict: late middle, not final — HBM binds now, power next; chip margins crack last as scarcity-era contracts roll off.

Full scored map for $AMZN $GOOG $MSFT $META $AVGO $NVDA $AMD included.

More from Venture