the big AI clouds are building in really different ways right now
Google is unique in that it owns basically every layer. it designs its own TPU chips, builds and runs its own data center campuses, and owns the application layer with Gemini, Search, YouTube, etc. its cloud business runs a very healthy operating margin.
SpaceXAI is similarly very integrated. they've put their own gas turbines and Tesla Megapacks next to their data centers and run Grok on a lot of their compute, though they still buy every GPU from Nvidia.
Crusoe develops the sites and the power, although for its biggest sites like Abilene, Blue Owl owns most of the campus. Nebius owns its Finland site, designs its own servers, and fun fact, pipes the server heat into the local town!
CoreWeave takes a different approach and leases every data center, only owning the GPUs and software. Fireworks goes further and mostly rents GPUs from a bunch of providers to sell inference, though we're seeing more inference providers start buying their own compute to expand margins and bring on more capacity
the more of the stack you own, the more capital it takes upfront, but also the better you can work around bottlenecks, which are getting more pervasive as the compute shortage worsens
