GPU revenue ladder: from DeepSeek's $38 to SpaceX's $2.44

Tomasz Tunguz converts the inference data disclosed by DeepSeek and SpaceX's third-quarter financial report into the same basis, yielding four price points for revenue per GPU card-hour, from DeepSeek's theoretical maximum of $38 to SpaceX's actual $2.44. The B200 spot price is $8.77, the SpaceX contract price is $5.27, and the payback period for its new compute deployment is less than one year. The author also points out reverse pressure: GPU rent rose from $4.40 to $8.08 within half a year, while the cost of the equivalent benchmark threshold fell 377 times in 18 months, and JPMorgan says more than 60% of the data center capacity planned for 2027 has not yet started construction.