## The Hardware Depreciation Timebomb
During the AI boom, venture capitalists pivoted from software to "GPU Cloud Compute" providers. They gave startups $50 Million to buy physical Nvidia H100 chips to rent out for $3.00 an hour. They are essentially operating short-term car rental agencies, but the cars become completely worthless in 36 months.
### FAQ
**Q: Why is running a GPU cluster so financially risky?**
A: Hardware obsolescence. If you buy 1,000 GPUs for $35 Million, that hardware will likely be functionally obsolete in 3 years when the next architectural generation drops. Therefore, your "Depreciation Expense" is roughly $11.6 Million per year. You have to generate $11.6M in rental income just to mathematically break even on the decaying metal, *before* you even pay the astronomically high electricity bills to power and cool the data center. If your cluster utilization drops from 95% down to 60%, you go bankrupt instantly.