I think it's a bit different because a rental car generates direct revenue that covers its cost. These GPU data centers are being used to train models (which themselves quickly become obsolete) and provide inference at a loss. Nothing in the current chain is profitable except selling the GPUs.
You say this like it's some sort of established fact. My understanding is the exact opposite and that inference is plenty profitable - the reason the companies are perpetually in the red is that they're always heavily investing in the next, larger generation.
I'm not Anthropic's CFO so i can't really prove who's right one way or the other, but I will note that your version relies on everyone involved being really, really stupid.
The current generation of today was the next generation of yesterday.
So, unless the services sold on inference can cover the cost of inference + training AND gain money, they are still operating at loss.
“like it's some sort of established fact” -> “My understanding”?! a.k.a pure speculation. Some of you AI fans really need to read your posts out loud before posting them.
