The AI compute market has changed dramatically over the past few months. In this video, I discuss the current state of GPU rentals on Vast.ai, SimplePod, and Salad, along with how Pearl mining impacted occupancy rates across the industry.
We take a look at real GPU rental statistics, occupancy rates, verified vs unverified hosts, RTX 5090 demand, AI workloads, storage requirements, internet requirements, and whether building new GPU servers still makes financial sense in 2026.
Topics covered:
- Vast.ai occupancy rates
- SimplePod utilization
- Salad demand trends
- RTX 5090 rental profitability
- Pearl mining impact on GPU rentals
- Verified vs unverified hosts
- Fiber internet and static IP discussion
- AI compute market outlook
- GPU server infrastructure costs
- Future AI rental opportunities