H100 Capacity Race (2023–2024)
When OpenAI's success made NVIDIA H100 GPUs the scarcest resource in tech, cloud providers scrambled to secure supply. CoreWeave, then a small GPU renter, locked in early access and landed a multibillion-dollar Microsoft-backed deal for its capacity.
CoreWeave became one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure providers almost overnight.
The episode showed that whoever secures scarce chips first wins enterprise contracts, even without a legacy cloud brand.
The same first-mover dynamic is playing out again with Rubin multi-rack deployments.
