Blame for notes/no-01.md

---
note: 1
title: "The Compute Watch - No. 1: Rents Up, Memory Barely Moved"

note_date: 2026-11-02

silicondata_recorded_on: 2026-11-02

ornn_recorded_on: 2026-11-01

canonical_url: https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/compute-watch-01.html

author: Lida Liberopoulou

license: CC BY-SA 4.0

test_status: inactive (shortage not easing)
---

# No. 1: Rents Up, Memory Barely Moved

## What this is

The Compute Watch is a monthly public record of what AI chips (GPUs) rent for, what lenders charge against them, and how long their owners say they last. This file is the structured reasoning behind No. 1. Every figure is compared against the No. 0 baseline.

- The published note: [No. 1: Rents Up, Memory Barely Moved](https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/compute-watch-01.html)
- The baseline: [No. 0](https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/compute-watch-00.html); what the watch is: [The Compute Watch](https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/compute-watch.html)
- The data for this note: `observations.csv`, `ladder.csv`, `events.csv` and `loans.csv` in this dataset, rows marked note `1`. `lifespans.csv` has no new rows.
- Kept by Lida Liberopoulou at [Threadbaire](https://threadbaire.com), independent research on AI economics and infrastructure. Research, not investment advice.

## Readings

- Premium (B200 rent ÷ H100 rent): 2.22× (Silicon Data, was 2.12×), 3.13× (Ornn, was 2.99×).
- The same H100 rents for 2.44× more at the largest cloud companies than at specialist providers (was 2.60×).
- Memory index (GDDR6, rebased to No. 0 = 100): 101.6.
- Owners' server lifespans: no change. Alphabet restated "generally six years" for servers on its Q3 2026 call.
- Loan terms: one new chip-backed loan disclosed (Sharon AI, $356 million over 42 months: $206 million at 9.95% fixed, $150 million starting at 7.25% and rising to 9.95%). Three other financings of different kinds are recorded in `loans.csv` with a `type` field, and are not compared with the baseline directly.

## What changed since the last note

- Silicon Data, change since 2 October: A100 −1.3%, H100 +5.8%, H200 +2.7%, B200 +10.9%, B300 +11.5%, H100 at the largest cloud companies −0.6%.
- Ornn: H100 +11.4% and B200 +16.7% (30 September to 1 November); H200 +18.7% and A100 +15.2% (5 October to 1 November).
- Memory: +1.6%, in four small steps roughly a week apart (the index is published daily but moved weekly in October). TrendForce's GDDR6 spot price was roughly flat in late October (−0.23% in the week to 26 October).
- The premium widened on both indexes.

## What it might mean

Every chip rose except the oldest, and the two newest (B200, B300) rose most. That is consistent with a shortage that is tightening, not easing. Memory rose far less than rents, so in October something other than the memory price moved most of the rent. Possible candidates on record: power, credit for the specialist providers, and new demand. This is a reading, not part of the test.

Three things held supply back at once: credit for specialist providers (CoreWeave's bond and default-insurance repricing; Firmus withdrawing its listing), power at named sites (Loughton, Melbourne M3), and memory. All three push easing further off, which makes it more likely the prediction is still open at No. 6.

## Where the sources disagree

- The two indexes moved the same way on every chip but the oldest: Silicon Data had the A100 down 1.3%, Ornn up 15.2%.
- The gap between their premiums widened from 0.87 to 0.91.
- On Ornn, the B200 rose steeply in mid-October and slipped slightly from a peak around 27–29 October; Silicon Data's readings show no such slip.
- The two measure related but different things: Silicon Data combines completed deals with posted prices and adjusts them to a standard configuration; Ornn uses only completed on-demand rentals.
- Sharon AI's press release said "9.95% fixed"; its 8-K shows part of the loan starts at 7.25%.

## Test status

Status: inactive. The shortage-easing trigger (memory index at or below 85 for two notes in a row) has not been met; the index is at 101.6. Until it is, movements in the B200 price prove nothing either way.

## Known confounds, recorded

From No. 0: new workloads on older chips; power, not memory. Added since:

- Cooling, not memory: liquid-cooled space for Blackwell is scarcer than air-cooled space for H100s, so a facility shortage can hold older-chip rent up independently of memory.
- Condition, not memory: worn cards could bias older-chip rent down and the premium up; no index records condition.
- Supply held back by credit, power and memory at once (above).

None changes the test.

## Index content changes

- Silicon Data added an A100 hyperscaler price; Ornn added the RTX PRO 6000. Neither is used.
- Vera Rubin became generally available at one cloud (Oracle, 27 October) but is not in either index.
- ICE has listed monthly futures on Ornn's B200 and H100 prices (December 2026 to December 2027) and publishes daily settlements; no contract had traded as of 2 November. CME's futures on Silicon Data's prices have not launched.

## Corrections to earlier rows

- `events.csv`, 2026-08-27: the verb was missing; the row now reads "Nvidia delivered its first Vera Rubin chips... to AWS."
- `events.csv`, 2026-10-01: a stray space before the final full stop removed.
- `loans.csv`: the `type` column added; the Nscale row (No. 0) given the type "chip-backed loan to a lessor". No values changed.

## Predictions scored: Anthropic's S-1

Four predictions filed on 23 October in [Follow the Money Both Ways](https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/follow-the-money-both-ways.html), scored against the first public S-1 (26 October). All four passed:

1. Use of proceeds stays vague: pass.
2. Neither Amazon nor Alphabet in the related-party section for compute: pass.
3. The Broadcom leases can't be rebuilt to the ~$161.2 billion total: pass.
4. Cash invested and commitments can't both be stated for Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft: pass (no cash figure for Microsoft).

## What to watch in No. 2

- Whether the Blackwell chips SpaceX says it is adding by year-end come online, and whether B300 rent softens.
- Whether Ornn's late-October B200 slip continues.
- Whether rents keep rising much faster than memory for a second month.
- Whether any ICE futures trade.
- When Rubin enters the indexes.

## Counter-argument and reader question

No counter-arguments or reader questions were sent in. The strongest counter-argument made in public: Jensen Huang (Yahoo Finance, 21 October) said chip life cycles are "probably eight to maybe more" years and that "you might be able to underwrite a loan against the asset itself". Answer: his case rests on demand ("so many offtakers"), which holds in a shortage, and the test starts only once the shortage eases. Where power is the constraint, newer chips do more with the same power, so an older chip can keep running while losing its claim on the power.

## Contribute

Send what you pay for compute, a correction, a counter-argument or a question: [threadbaire.com/contact.html#compute-watch](https://threadbaire.com/contact.html#compute-watch). You don't need to give your name. Your own numbers are never published or put into AI tools, and pooled ranges appear only once at least five people have reported on a chip. Arguments and questions may be discussed with AI tools while drafting an answer, without your name or identifying details, unless you ask for them to stay out. [How contributions work](https://threadbaire.com/blog/posts/compute-watch.html#how-to-contribute).