Nvidia says its AI compute bill has already passed payroll
Bryan Catanzaro said the cost of compute for his team is already higher than the cost of the employees, according to Axios.
Nvidia’s vice president of applied deep learning, Bryan Catanzaro, said the money spent on compute for his team already sits “far beyond the costs of the employees,” according to Axios.
That lands at a time when Nvidia has become the world’s first $5 trillion company, OpenAI has taken in $110 billion in funding, and Meta and Amazon keep pouring money into AI work of their own.
The bigger point is not just that AI is expensive, but that the bill can rise fast enough to compete with the people building the systems. Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has argued that plumbers, electricians, and carpenters will still be needed because all of these factories have to be built, but the wider industry is still arguing over what AI means for white-collar work and how much of that cost will be passed along.
For now, Nvidia’s comment turns the usual AI sales pitch on its head. The question is no longer only what these systems can do, but how much they cost to run compared with the humans they are meant to replace.
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