You can sell the old, less efficient GPUs to folks who will be running them with markedly lower duty cycles (so, less emphasis on direct operational costs), e.g. for on-prem inference or even just typical workstation/consumer use. It ends up being a win-win trade.
Not necessarily if you count capital costs vs operating costs/margins.
Replacing cars every 3 years vs a couple % in efficiency is not an obvious trade off. Especially if you can do it in 5 years instead of 3.
You highlight the exact dilemma.
Company A has taxis that are 5 percent less efficient and for the reasons you stated doesn't want to upgrade.
Company B just bought new taxis, and they are undercutting company A by 5 percent while paying their drivers the same.
Company A is no longer competitive.
The debt company B took on to buy those new taxis means they're no longer competitive either if they undercut by 5%.
The scenario doesn't add up.
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You can sell the old, less efficient GPUs to folks who will be running them with markedly lower duty cycles (so, less emphasis on direct operational costs), e.g. for on-prem inference or even just typical workstation/consumer use. It ends up being a win-win trade.
Then you’re dealing with a lot of labor to do the switches (and arrange sales of used equipment), plus capital float costs while you do it.
It can make sense at a certain scale, but it’s a non trivial amount of cost and effort for potentially marginal returns.
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