Buying an Operating GPU Cluster
What a live, contracted GPU cluster is worth, and what to check.
What it covers
A live cluster with a signed customer is a different asset from new servers: you buy contracted payments, hardware that loses value every month, and an operator who keeps both going.
Buying new servers to run yourself? See managedgpus.com.
A public example: a B300 cluster changes hands
Axe Compute bought the company that owns Duos Technologies' Georgia GPU cluster. The filings give enough to price it per server.
| What was sold | The SPV holding 288 Supermicro B300 servers (2,304 GPUs) and networking, in Columbus, Georgia. Closed September 30, 2026. |
| Price | About $87.8M of SPV debt repaid at closing, plus $42.9M deferred ($715K a month for 60 months, due within 12 months of closing or on refinancing). |
| Customer contract | Extended from 3 to 5 years, to 2031, with about $365M of expected revenue. |
| Site costs | The seller covers colocation and power for the 5-year term. |
| The original loan | USD.AI, $98.1M in Jun 2026: 12%, 3 years, 68.8% loan-to-value (onchain tracker). In Oct 2026, USD.AI said it sold a loan of that size to an institutional buyer (USD.AI). |
Sources: Form 8-K and press release, SEC EDGAR, October 5, 2026.
How to read it
About $454K a server. Debt repaid plus the deferred price is about $131M undiscounted, networking included. A new B300 server costs $550-650K before networking in our October 2026 ballparks; the October 2026 Rack Report puts a new HGX B300 node at $400K-$450K on a volume order and $490K-$520K for one unit.
Expected revenue is 2.8 times the price. Over 2,304 GPUs for 5 years, about $3.61 per GPU-hour. The seller paying for colocation and power widens the margin; operations, support and the deferred price still come out of it.
Contract length and residual set the price. Extending the contract from three to five years at the sale pushed the resale date further out.
What you are buying
| The contract | Who pays, for how long, on what terms: take-or-pay or not, termination rights, and whether a sale needs the customer's consent. Score the customer: Offtaker Credit Score. |
| The hardware | Model, age, condition and failure history, server by serial. Its value when the contract ends is most of your downside. |
| The site | Colocation term against the contract term, power cost, and an access agreement so the landlord's lien does not block you from your servers. |
| The operator | Who runs the cluster after closing, and who replaces them if they fail. Score the operator: Neocloud Credit Score. |
| The debt | Whether existing loans are repaid at closing or stay, on what prepayment terms, and whether the cluster can carry new debt. |
What the servers are worth when the contract ends
| GPU | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B300 | 78-81% | 52-64% | 37-50% | 28-39% | 12-21% |
| B200 | 59-67% | 40-54% | 30-42% | 16-26% | 6-11% |
| H200 | 45-59% | 34-46% | 24-35% | 7-15% | 4-6% |
Resale value as a share of original price, conservative band, from our residual value report. A cluster on a contract to 2029 is a bet on the 2029 column.
Diligence and protection
| An appraisal | Value today and at contract end, from resale data rather than list prices. See appraisals and due diligence. |
| A floor under the residual | Residual value insurance pays the shortfall if eligible equipment sells below an insured floor at the dates in the policy. |
| Cover for the customer | Lost revenue cover pays covered lost revenue through a qualifying offtake interruption while a replacement customer is found. |
| A backup operator | If the operator fails, we keep the cluster running. See backup operator. |
Other ways to own a contracted cluster
Sale-leaseback. Buy the servers and lease them to the operator. Apollo funds led $3.5B for GB200 servers leased to xAI (Jan 2026).
Lend instead. A senior loan against the same cluster takes the customer risk with less of the residual. See investing in AI infrastructure and how GPU loans are sold.
Get access to deals
Tell us what you would buy or fund: GPU generation, contract length, size. We will set up an intake call, then share deals that fit.
Prefer email? hello@amcompute.com
Questions
- What is an operating GPU cluster worth?
- The contracted payments left, net of running costs, plus what the servers sell for when the contract ends, each discounted for its risk. Without a contract, roughly its resale value.
- Is a sale-leaseback the same as buying a cluster?
- Close. You buy the servers and lease them back to the operator, who keeps running them and pays you rent. You carry the operator's credit and the residual, not the customer contract directly.
- Can I buy a GPU cluster through Origination?
- Not as a listing. Origination lists financing requests, some for sale-leasebacks and preferred equity. Tell us what you would buy on the intake call.