“A chip earning more than it costs is a sign of scarcity due to memory and power shortages, not GPU die shortages and not durability. [Once those component shortages ease and newer, more efficient architectures like Vera Rubin ramp up, rental prices for legacy A100/H100-class hardware are expected to drop significantly.]”

As of early October 2026, A100/H100 rental rates were still firm or rising (median on-demand H100 about $3.42/GPU-hour in late September 2026) amid memory and power bottlenecks; the test is whether legacy rental rates fall materially as those shortages ease and Vera Rubin volume ramps through 2027.