GPU Economics
8 statements · 2026–2026
In the 2023 GPU crisis, Akash was the only one with GPUs
The Remote Work Tribe Podcast: Greg Osuri (The Remote Work Tribe Podcast)
“It really became prominent in 23 timeframe when you had GPU crisis. You remember, ChatGPT launched and it was impossible to get GPUs. And Akash was the only one that had GPUs because we were tapping into places where your typical cloud wouldn’t go.” — Greg Osuri, 00:04:43
Context: His recurring supply-side argument; illustrated by the Cornell student who built a company on an Akash GPU that NVIDIA later acquired [00:05:31].
One GPU per prompt — 7 billion AI users implies staggering GPU demand
"DACM Insights: Decentralizing AI, The Akash Approach" (DACM Insights)
“Inference — in order to infer a model, you need one GPU per one prompt. Simply put, every prompt you send… takes 10 seconds to return the answer; that 10 seconds is being computed on one GPU… So if you have 7 billion people in the world, if everybody’s on AI, you can imagine how many GPUs we need.” — Greg Osuri, 00:13:55
Context: Answering why AI needs so much compute/energy, as setup for the decentralization argument.
The H100 gap: half a million made, four million needed
"DACM Insights: Decentralizing AI, The Akash Approach" (DACM Insights)
“There is a shortage of GPUs. There’s no amount of GPUs in the world. We looked at Nvidia’s production lines — Nvidia, in ‘23, they made about half a million H100s and we needed about 4 million H100s from the demand… there was such clear, obvious need that basically defined what 2023 and 2024 was for Akash.” — Greg Osuri, 00:11:47
Context: Explaining why Akash bet on GPU supply once scaling laws became clear; he says he expected the boom but “I didn’t think it was going to be ‘23” [00:10:20].
Physical goods going up; resource trade still early
LIVE from NEARCON Day 1 In SF (The Rollup)
“I think physical goods are just going to go up… As cringe as it sounds, we’re still in early beginnings, I think, when it comes to, like, resources really — because agents have changed everything.” — Greg Osuri, 03:11:35
Context: On memory/RAM prices spiking, rare-earth geopolitics (Greenland, Ukraine), and copper/uranium trades; pushes back on the host’s suggestion that the picks-and-shovels trade has already played out.
Claimed track record: called the GPU and energy shortages
From AWS to Akash: Greg Osuri on Building a Decentralized Compute Marketplace (Smart Economy Network)
“We predicted in 2020 that there’s going to be a chip shortage, GPU shortage… we predicted two years ago there’s going to be energy shortage… making the bet on Cosmos, right bet; making the bet on AI is right bet; making a bet on energy now is I think it’s going to be the right bet as well.” — Greg Osuri, 00:20:25
Context: Recounting Akash’s history of technology picks; quote spans into the [00:22:33] block for the “bet on energy” line.
Market shift from single GPUs to 50-100 node H100 clusters on long-term contracts
The Infrastructure Behind Agentic Finance, with Shashank Yadav and Greg Osuri of Akash Network (Fraction AI)
“The winds have shifted from people individually getting individual GPUs to taking large quantities of GPUs… we’re in the process of refactoring our marketplace to support large orders… 50 to 100 nodes, each node having eight H100-type nodes… people are leaning towards long-term contracts versus on-demand… ‘I’m going to pay $2 for H100, I want this price to be locked in for the next two years.’” — Greg Osuri, 00:16:40
Context: Asked how many GPUs Akash has: pipeline of 10-15K GPUs waiting to come online, 15-20K expected after the redesign; on-demand demand has shifted mostly to inference hosting.
GPUs appreciate instead of depreciating
This Crypto Turns GPUs Into Income For Everyone!!!! (AllinCrypto)
“There is no depreciation in GPUs today… H100s have increased in price. They’re nearly double in price. We’re talking about used H100s… You don’t depreciate, you appreciate cuz the demand outweighs supply.” — Greg Osuri, 00:24:17
Context: On the AI supply-chain crisis; also cites 4060-class home GPUs listed at $4,000 selling for ~$12,000 and Micron HBM costs quadrupling.
Put 5090s at home on solar and earn income at zero marginal cost
AI Data Centers Are Eating the Grid. Is There Another Way? (The People's AI: The Decentralized AI Podcast)
“You can simply put a bunch of 5090s, put it on Akash right now and actually earn a sizable income. Your biggest variable will be bandwidth and your energy costs. That’s what you want to watch out for. Now, if you have access to, let’s say, a solar or renewable, your marginal cost is zero. That’s an incredible opportunity.” — Greg Osuri, 00:39:59
Context: Also notes Bitcoin miners are pivoting their setups to AI compute. (Whisper renders “put it on Akash” as “put it on a cash” and slightly garbles the surrounding sentence.)