The H200 Availability Crisis: Why No One Can Rent Compute
Try to spin up an H200 on AWS right now. You can't. The waitlist is 6 months long. The AI boom has hit a hardware wall, and the 'GPU Squeeze' of 2026 makes the 2021 chip shortage look like a minor inconvenience.
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Three words: Meta, Microsoft, xAI. The hyperscalers are buying every chip NVIDIA produces before it even leaves the factory. Mark Zuckerberg's plan to amass 600,000 H100 equivalents wasn't a flex; it was a hoarding strategy. Startups are fighting over scraps or resorting to 'GPU Smuggling' from grey markets.
The problem isn't the GPU core; it's the memory. The H200 uses HBM3e (High Bandwidth Memory), which is incredibly difficult to manufacture. SK Hynix and Samsung are running their fabs at 110% capacity, but yields are low. This single component is holding back the entire AI revolution.
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A new type of trader has emerged: the Compute Broker. They buy reserved instances on obscure clouds (Lambda, CoreWeave, FluidStack) and resell them at a 300% markup. It's scalping, but for intelligence. If you need 8xH200s for a fine-tuning run, you might be buying them from a guy named 'CryptoDave' on Discord.
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So what do you do? 1. Downgrade: A100s are still capable. 2. Distill: Use smaller models that fit on consumer cards. 3. Wait: The shortage is expected to ease by Q4 2026... maybe.
