Nvidia’s H100 GPU gains about 30% in value as AI compute demand holds firm

Most hardware loses value the moment it leaves the box. Nvidia’s H100 is not following that script. The H100 is worth about 30% more than it was a year ago, fueled by heavy demand for AI compute. For a data center chip that debuted in Q4 2022, that is a strange kind of aging. The rebound arrives after a rough 2025 for H100 pricing, when rental prices slumped. In 2026, the trend flipped. Demand for both AI training, which builds models, and AI inference, which runs them for users, has pulled rates back up. What the rental market is saying As of mid-October 2026, median H100 rental rates sit between $3.3 and $3.6 per GPU-hour. The median on-demand rate stood at $3.49 per GPU-hour as of October 16, 2026. The year-over-year picture depends on which yardstick you use. One median shows rental prices up 79% from the lows recorded in 2025. Other indices show gains of 13% or more. Those figures line up with a reported average increase of around 30%, amid a supply chain that remains constrained. Who pays more, and why it matters Not every renter pays the same price. Hyperscale cloud providers charge premiums 1.7x to 2.7x higher than specialist cloud providers. The secondary market tells a ca...