TCO Analysis of 10k Cluster
This is my bare-metal chassis analysis for a 10,000-GPU H100 cluster. It’s a helpful way to understand the every parts of a server. The goal was to compare costs when buying directly from ODMs versus OEMs, using typical markups of about 1% and 30% respectively. With the fast-changing AI market, these numbers may continue to shift.
The cost estimates are based on data from pytorchatoms. I prorated the figures to a 10,000-GPU setup and performed several cross-checks to ensure internal consistency.
The server-component data is from 2024, while the operational assumptions reflect conditions as of July 2025. I used a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of 9.1%.
A range of 7%–10% seems reasonable, given a current U.S. risk-free rate of approximately 4.3%. The 90% utilization rate is sourced from SemiAnalysis, though it may be somewhat optimistic.
Most of the underlying figures come from PytorchAtoms and SemiAnalysis. The electricity cost assumption of $0.087 per kWh is based on North Dakota rates.