I think it's a bit different because a rental car generates direct revenue that covers its cost. These GPU data centers are being used to train models (which themselves quickly become obsolete) and provide inference at a loss. Nothing in the current chain is profitable except selling the GPUs.

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sho 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> and provide inference at a loss

You say this like it's some sort of established fact. My understanding is the exact opposite and that inference is plenty profitable - the reason the companies are perpetually in the red is that they're always heavily investing in the next, larger generation.

I'm not Anthropic's CFO so i can't really prove who's right one way or the other, but I will note that your version relies on everyone involved being really, really stupid.

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elktown 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

“like it's some sort of established fact” -> “My understanding”?! a.k.a pure speculation. Some of you AI fans really need to read your posts out loud before posting them.

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teodosin 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You misread the literal first snippet you quoted. There's no contradiction in what you replied to.

	▲	elktown 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No?

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darkwater 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The current generation of today was the next generation of yesterday. So, unless the services sold on inference can cover the cost of inference + training AND gain money, they are still operating at loss.

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rvba 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or just "everyone" being greedy