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nltoday at 1:32 AM1 replyview on HN

> we know deprecation cycle of DC hardware leans towards tulips i.e. <10 years (very generous) vs 20+ years for fiber layout

[1] is a reasonable discussion of DC cost models, which calculates depreciation as part of the annual cost.

> here is the rest of the order magnitude more $$$ that justifies existing spent relative to time frame coming from?

That money comes from long term debt (ie bonds by public companies[3]) and new investment into neo-cloud companies (ie, IPOs like 4).

The justification comes revenue. Eg, the NScale IPO above[4] has $51B in long term contracted revenue with an annual run rate of $500M.

[1] https://epoch.ai/data-insights/ai-datacenter-cost-breakdown

[2] https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/d...

[3] eg https://www.yondrgroup.com/newsroom/press-release/yondr-secu... (but you'll find lots of similar bonds issued)

[4] https://dealroom.co/news/143730-nscale-eyes-september-us-ipo...


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maxglutetoday at 1:53 AM

This narrow focus, of course some intermediaries in industrial chain is going to make $$$ selling/renting shovels - there is stupendous amount of $$$ being moved around, there will be some very phat winners, but even more losers in aggregate on broad ecosystem level. [1] is actually illustrative, there's a reason why opex low - capex premium is ridiculous right now, with almost everyone along compute industrial chain capturing 50%+ margins. Investors are burning $$$ and companies and pillaging warchests, intermediaries are raking in $$$, but that doesn't mean investors or companies doing all the spending will make more than they spend, i.e. the net ecosystem business model is not sustainable precisely because intermediaries are capturing crazy rent relative to actual monetization to sustain.

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