News Nvidia's AI GPUs are cheaper to rent in China than in the U.S. — $6 per hour for eight Nvidia A100 GPUs

[Admin]

The rent of 8-way Nvidia A100 servers is 40% cheaper in China than in the U.S., as Chinese companies are smuggling plenty of them.

Nvidia's AI GPUs are cheaper to rent in China than in the U.S. — $6 per hour for eight Nvidia A100 GPUs : Read more

 

[Notton]

That makes no sense to me.
A100/H100 isn't banned in China, so once it gets in, buyers are free to gobble it up.
It is a high demand product.
The hard part is exporting it
It is a high demand product, internationally.
Smuggling would only add on to costs, as you're asking someone in the middle to do something illegal. Why would they do it for cheaper than the going price?
AFAIK, average electricity price is $0.088/kWh in China
AFAIK, for USA it is $0.125/kWh, i.e not 40% difference
I know there are other factors like land/building costs, etc, but too complicated.

If anything, I think it points to US companies price gouging.

 

[Amdlova]

China broke

 

[HideOut]

The rent of 8-way Nvidia A100 servers is 40% cheaper in China than in the U.S., as Chinese companies are smuggling plenty of them.

Nvidia's AI GPUs are cheaper to rent in China than in the U.S. — $6 per hour for eight Nvidia A100 GPUs : Read more

Something that is cheaper in China than in the US. No, really?

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

That makes no sense to me.
A100/H100 isn't banned in China, so once it gets in, buyers are free to gobble it up.
It is a high demand product.
The hard part is exporting it
It is a high demand product, internationally.
Smuggling would only add on to costs, as you're asking someone in the middle to do something illegal. Why would they do it for cheaper than the going price?
AFAIK, average electricity price is $0.088/kWh in China
AFAIK, for USA it is $0.125/kWh, i.e not 40% difference
I know there are other factors like land/building costs, etc, but too complicated.

If anything, I think it points to US companies price gouging.

You are absolutely wrong, the A & H100 is restricted from export to China which is a defacto ban. Also if you do the actual math, (0.125/0.088)*100=142% so yes power costs 42% more in the U.S., mostly due to US using more expensive natural gas generators vs Chinese coal-fired generators.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

You are absolutely wrong, the A & H100 is restricted from export to China which is a defacto ban.

I think what he means is that they are not banned within China. Obviously they're banned from getting into China in the first place, but once they are, its free real estate.

 

[Rob1C]

Doing a quick search and I find you can buy something described as: "Nvidia Tesla A100 Ampere GPU Accelarator 40GB Graphics Card Deep learning AI" from a seller in China (with a 99.3% positive rating) for U$12K.

Apparently the cards get shipped to neighbouring countries and then make their way into China. If they tightened export regulations to only allow export to countries that also had strong export regulations then the flow would lessen.