Chinese cloud service providers have "renting services" where they rent out their hardware stack, with prices that are radically cheaper than those available in the United States... as low as $6 per hour.
The Financial Times reports that Chinese CSPs (cloud service providers) are renting out their AI GPU hardware, with small Chinese CSPs providing companies with an AI server that packs 8 x NVIDIA A100 AI GPUs that costs around $6 per hour to rent them out. If you're in the US, that would cost you around 50% more at $10 per hour.
US sanctions to the side, NVIDIA's newer H100 and older A100 AI GPUs are easily available in China, which is why the rental costs are so much lower than other regions. It's estimated that over 100,000 x NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs are in China right now, and they're openly being sold on Chinese marketplaces, smuggled all across the country according to one Chinese startup founder.
- Read more: Loophole: US rules allows Chinese firms to buy, rent NVIDIA AI GPUs, if they're used in the US
- Read more: NVIDIA working on B20 AI GPU for China: compliant with US regulations, enters production soon
- Read more: There's an underground network smuggling NVIDIA AI GPUs into China, we're totally NOT surprised
- Read more: China's black market price of NVIDIA's H100 AI GPU has plummeted, H200 is coming soon
NVIDIA's H100 is sold in China for around $23,000 to $30,000, which is much cheaper than its peak when it was nigh impossible to buy higher-end AI chips in China because of US sanctions by the Biden administration.
