Rental prices for old Nvidia chips, particularly the H100, increased by 22% over the past month, reaching $3.28 per hour. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang noted that this confirms the durability and profitability of the equipment. According to him, "Nvidia's computations are interchangeable, durable, and highly profitable." This shows that even outdated chips can generate significant income.
The increase in rental rates is based on data published on the X platform. Previously, renting an H100 cost $7–8 per hour, and at an earlier stage, it was even more expensive, so the current price remains significantly below historical levels. Experts attribute the rise to the fact that the latest Blackwell systems are reserved for the largest buyers, and older clusters continue to handle inference tasks. Energy and memory constraints also impact the market.
However, not everyone views this trend positively. Michael Burry, a well-known investor, is skeptical about the useful life of GPUs and increased his short position on Nvidia at the end of August. He believes that the actual lifespan of chips is shorter than what is typically accounted for (five to six years). Additional concerns arise regarding the debt load of CoreWeave: the cloud company that buys Nvidia chips and rents them out had a debt of $35 billion at the end of June. Nvidia, in turn, agreed to rent back unused capacities from such partners, which critics refer to as off-balance-sheet transactions that distort real demand. In August, Nvidia reported record revenue of $96.2 billion for the second quarter, after which the company's shares rose by more than 4%. The increase in rental prices for old chips gives Huang an additional argument for the sustainability of the business. If the trend continues for a second consecutive month, it could evolve into a new trend that analysts and investors will closely monitor.