I presume they're selling their compute because they don't have the capability to use it profitably themselves, which indicates massive capital misallocation.
Is it profitable, though? I mean, $920M here, $920M there, starts to add up to real money eventually, but xAI has spent quite a lot on GPUs, infrastructure, and has ongoing costs for power and cooling.
That said, I also think it's interesting, and maybe even a little suspicious, that everyone in the AI industry seems pretty interested in making sure the money keeps flowing. Just as it becomes obvious xAI got out over their skis on Colossus, and don't have have profitable work for all those billions of dollars worth of GPUs, all the other big guys line up to bail them out just when showing a massive capital outlay with no path to recoup would adversely impact the IPO. I dunno.
I presume they're selling their compute because they don't have the capability to use it profitably themselves, which indicates massive capital misallocation.
At this price, GPUs might be more profitable than tokens.
Is it profitable, though? I mean, $920M here, $920M there, starts to add up to real money eventually, but xAI has spent quite a lot on GPUs, infrastructure, and has ongoing costs for power and cooling.
That said, I also think it's interesting, and maybe even a little suspicious, that everyone in the AI industry seems pretty interested in making sure the money keeps flowing. Just as it becomes obvious xAI got out over their skis on Colossus, and don't have have profitable work for all those billions of dollars worth of GPUs, all the other big guys line up to bail them out just when showing a massive capital outlay with no path to recoup would adversely impact the IPO. I dunno.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48417490