Comment by logsr

I think you are right that the entire analysis is flawed. The Amazon and Microsoft "rental" deals have inflated price tags because of the circular financial arrangements between them and OpenAI, and because those future revenue streams can be used notionally to finance CapEx. All of the Stargate DC build is being done through for-profit SPVs, so the financials are murky, but building the infra gives them collateral for debt, and they are going to lease the compute to the highest bidder, so there is a whole scheme for getting out of the non-profit box, creating a self-perpetuating loop of borrowing to build, using what they build as collateral for more borrowing, raising additional revenue and hedging by leasing compute to 3rd parties, and then using the for-profit SPVs to cross-subsidize OpenAI proper. That plan has enormous risks of its own (can the leadership team of OpenAI effectively build a competitor in the hyperscale compute space?) but whatever happens, it won't just be straight line scaling their current deals with existing hyperscalers.