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“Bryan Catanzaro, Nvidia's VP of applied deep learning, recently told Axios that "For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees", quite an interesting statement from the company selling the shovels for the gold rush.”
Published
The claim is supported. Bryan Catanzaro, Nvidia's Vice President of Applied Deep Learning, explicitly told Axios that the cost of computing power for his team now far exceeds the cost of their salaries. This statement underscores a significant shift in the tech industry where the expense of running AI models—often referred to as "token costs"—is becoming a larger financial burden than human payroll.
3 reviewed sources behind this verdict.
This Axios report contains the original interview and quote from the Nvidia executive, along with broader industry context regarding AI budgets.
... Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, recently told Axios. Click the link in the bio to read more.".
... Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, recently told Axios. An MIT study from 2024 backs up Catanzaro's experience.
The quote was first reported by Axios in April 2026 as part of an investigation into ballooning IT budgets. Catanzaro's admission is striking because Nvidia is the leading provider of the very hardware that makes these compute costs so high. The evidence shows this is not an isolated incident:
While some CEOs view these high bills as a sign of innovation and progress, the report notes that companies will eventually need to prove that these "digital workers" provide a better return on investment than their human counterparts.
Source quality: The verdict is based on a direct quote from a primary interview conducted by Axios with the named executive. The report also includes corroborating data from Gartner and specific examples from other major tech firms like Uber.
High
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