【文章标题】：Financing the AI Boom 3 【文章标题】：为AI热潮融资 3
【文章正文】： Last November, in 去年11月，在
Bubble Trouble 2 泡沫麻烦2
, we looked at AI chips as the font of a new asset class. At the time, their prices weren’t going up, hence the cautionary title. But nine months is a long time in AI and as demand for compute has accelerated, legacy GPU prices have inflected. 中，我们曾将AI芯片视为一种新资产类别的源头。当时，它们的价格并没有上涨，因此标题带有警示意味。但在AI领域，九个月是很长的时间，随着计算需求加速，老一代GPU的价格已经发生了转折。
“Everyone in 2024 and 2025, even if you were really bullish, you thought that GPU prices would decline slowly,” “每个人在2024年和2025年，即使你非常看涨，也认为GPU价格会缓慢下跌，”
said 说
tech investor Gavin Baker on a recent podcast. “If you were bearish, you thought they would decline precipitously. I don’t think anyone in ‘24 or ‘25 thought that the prices of old GPUs would be going vertical.” 科技投资者加文·贝克在最近一期播客中。“如果你看跌，你会认为它们会急剧下跌。我不认为在24年或25年有人会认为旧GPU的价格会垂直上涨。”
Yet they are. 然而，确实如此。
According 根据
to Silicon Data, the price to rent a Nvidia Hopper H100 chip for an hour has risen to 1.96 at the end of November. And there’s no sign of a slowdown. Forward rates compiled by Silicon Data (more on them later) curve upwards into 2027 and 2028. One rental customer, Baseten, a provider of software and computing capacity to companies tapping into lower-cost AI models, Silicon Data的数据显示，租用一块Nvidia Hopper H100芯片一小时的价格已升至2.71美元，高于11月底的1.96美元。而且没有放缓的迹象。Silicon Data编制的远期利率（稍后详述）在2027年和2028年呈上升曲线。一个租赁客户Baseten，为采用低成本AI模型的公司提供软件和计算能力，
revealed 透露
recently that its cloud service provider will push up the rental price on its Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs from 5.10 when its contract renews in October. 最近，其云服务提供商将在合同于10月续签时，将其Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPU的租赁价格从每小时2.63美元提高到5.10美元。
Even older vintage chips are appreciating. CoreWeave, which rents out GPU infrastructure to AI developers and enterprises, said on its earnings call this week that it has signed a contract to lease Nvidia Ampere A100 chips – a product introduced in 2020 – all the way out to 2029 at “an attractive price”. Despite their age, “we remain largely sold out of prior generations of NVIDIA GPUs in addition to the current SKUs,” added the firm’s CFO. 甚至更老一代的芯片也在升值。CoreWeave向AI开发者和企业出租GPU基础设施，该公司在本周的财报电话会议上表示，已签署合同，将租赁Nvidia Ampere A100芯片——一款于2020年推出的产品——一直租到2029年，价格“颇具吸引力”。尽管这些芯片已经过时，但“除了当前型号之外，我们前几代NVIDIA GPU也基本售罄，”该公司首席财务官补充道。
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang 英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋
reflected 表示
: ：
“The mighty A100 fleet are mission-capable from 2020 through 2029. NVIDIA computing is more than chips. CUDA gives developers and NVIDIA engineers a common platform to continually upgrade Ampere, Hopper and Blackwell throughout their useful lives. CUDA makes NVIDIA computing versatile. Versatility makes it fungible. Fungibility drives utilization and extends durability, making NVIDIA compute a productive asset: rentable, durable and financeable.” “强大的A100系列从2020年到2029年都能执行任务。NVIDIA计算不仅仅是芯片。CUDA为开发者和NVIDIA工程师提供了一个通用平台，使他们能够在Ampere、Hopper和Blackwell的整个使用寿命期间持续升级。CUDA使NVIDIA计算具有多功能性。多功能性使其可互换。可互换性推动了利用率并延长了耐用性，使NVIDIA计算成为一种生产性资产：可租赁、耐用且可融资。”
Huang’s comments come off the back of 黄仁勋的言论是在
a deal 一项协议
with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize over $500 billion of third-party capital to support the buildout of AI infrastructure. The deal was made possible by the resilience of GPU pricing. If Huang is right that his chips are durable, then the scope to finance them widens. 与Apollo、BlackRock、Blackstone、Brookfield、Goldman Sachs和KKR达成之后发表的，该协议旨在调动超过5000亿美元的第三方资本，以支持AI基础设施的建设。GPU价格的韧性使这笔交易成为可能。如果黄仁勋关于其芯片耐用性的判断正确，那么为它们融资的空间就会扩大。
“People are going to begin to recognize that this is a financeable asset class,” “人们将开始认识到这是一个可融资的资产类别，”
said 说
Blackstone president, Jon Gray at the launch. “When you go to buy a house, the bank underwrites you but they also look at the value of your home. When an airline goes to buy a plane, they look at the credit of that company but also the plane. I think historically here, the limitation has been investors have said, I only want so much exposure to this hyperscaler or maybe to this foundational model company. I think when people recognize how powerful and valuable this compute is, no matter who’s using it…markets are going to recognise the opportunity.” 黑石集团总裁乔恩·格雷在发布仪式上。“当你买房时，银行会为你承保，但他们也会看你房子的价值。当航空公司购买飞机时，他们看的是该公司的信用，但也会看飞机本身。我认为从历史上看，这里的限制一直是投资者说，我只想对这家超大规模云厂商或也许这家基础模型公司有这么多敞口。我认为当人们认识到这种计算能力无论由谁使用都多么强大和有价值时……市场将认识到这个机会。”
His peers lined up in agreement. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock went so far as to say, “This is the very beginning, like what it was when I started in the mortgage-backed securities market in the 1970s and I look upon this as a next future for financial engineering.” 他的同行们也纷纷赞同。贝莱德首席执行官拉里·芬克甚至表示：“这只是一个开始，就像我在20世纪70年代进入抵押贷款支持证券市场时一样，我将其视为金融工程的下一未来。”
To see how this new asset class is shaping up and whether it can reach the size of the mortgage-backed securities market or other established markets, read on. 想了解这一新资产类别如何形成，以及它能否达到抵押贷款支持证券市场或其他成熟市场的规模，请继续阅读。
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