The price of renting a GPU just doubled. Gavin Baker, CIO of Atreides Management, flagged that spot rental prices for the same GPU cluster jumped from just under $2 per hour to nearly $4 over a seven-month stretch, with the observation landing on August 4, 2026.
The numbers behind the squeeze
Spot GPU rental rates are now running at least 2x higher than contracted rates, based on Baker’s observations from late July 2026.
H100 1-year contract pricing climbed approximately 40% from $1.70 per hour in October 2025 to $2.35 per hour by March 2026.
Baker suspects that spot rates exceeding contracted rates by at least twofold suggests hyperscalers have meaningful pricing power they haven’t fully exercised yet.
