Older GPUs retaining value after years of rental income is a positive for IREN's GPU-cloud economics. Per @wallstengine, an A100 system with 9,600 GPUs and servers is listed for $59.7 million, about $6,200 per GPU. Against an estimated original rack cost of $25,000 per GPU, that suggests a 25% residual after six to seven years; the GPUs also rented for $2-10 an hour for six years. The residual is based on an asking price, not a sale. x.com  x.com  x.com 

Rising rental rates even for older GPUs strengthen the case that IREN and CoreWeave's compute assets retain value. The quoted a16z data puts year-to-date rental gains at 160% for H200s, 120% for B200s and 35% for H100s; even six-year-old A100s rent for more than at the start of the year. x.com 

NVIDIA's GPU value pool faces architectural competition and shorter useful lives than ten-year assumptions imply. Etched and other accelerator designs may challenge performance within five years, while power limits favor relentless gains in performance per watt; past GPU generations improved more than 2-3x, and industry experts reportedly used four-year lives before GPT. The range of outcomes remains wide. x.com  x.com  x.com 

Better chips explain falling AI token prices, while rising GPU rents reflect demand for Nvidia's hardware. B200 rentals rose 28% in the first eight months of 2026 even as token prices more than halved since May. A Vera Rubin rack is estimated at ~$7.8M, almost twice a Blackwell GB300 rack's price, but Nvidia says Rubin cuts cost per token by up to 10x versus Blackwell; its September agentic-coding benchmark puts the gap at up to 45x. x.com 

Nvidia's capacity commitments argue against AI orders drying up soon. Its filings show mostly memory and manufacturing commitments rising from $119 billion to $279 billion in one quarter, with about $175 billion covering 2027-28. Fewer new data-center projects could reflect power, land and building bottlenecks rather than weaker demand; a mid-teens multiple still reflects a fair worry that profits may not last. x.com 

Nvidia's neocloud orders increasingly require its own credit support. Per The Information, it is in talks to guarantee billions of Nscale debt for a 460MW data center; Nscale needs an IPO to fund $24B in Nvidia systems committed for 2026-27. Separately, a quoted article says US officials identified Alice Huang, scrutinized for possibly routing Nvidia chips to China, as a Chinese intelligence asset with direct access to Jensen Huang. This is just the tip of a very big iceberg. x.com  x.com  x.com 

Semiconductors should keep outperforming because rising GPU rental rates point to strong returns on compute, so a rotation into hyperscalers on lower capex, as Mike Wilson and others argue, is unlikely. B200 rental rates jumped from $5.30 to $5.77 in a week, per Silicon Data, despite worries over Meta selling excess capacity and falling token prices, and B200 availability hit 0%, per 3F Research. GPU rates should fall over time, yet B200 and even H100 rates have risen over the past year. x.com  … Show more

AI software and hardware advances make GPUs and power more valuable, creating huge long-term tailwinds for compute providers and AI model and app businesses. Each new software generation increases a GPU's value; each hardware generation increases the value of a gigawatt of power. That favors Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel and AppLovin. x.com 

Nvidia feels like Microsoft and Amazon last year: well owned and positioned, very cheap if the numbers are sustainable, yet likely to see its multiple compress for 12-18 months until frustrated longs sell. x.com 

Lower AI token prices drive more usage, making GPUs scarcer and raising rental rates for neocloud capacity. Gavin Baker reports rising GPU rental prices even as token prices fall; the GPU constraint never left, and higher rental prices make the ARR math work again. x.com  x.com