What Is a Neocloud?
A neocloud is a cloud company that focuses almost 100 percent on renting out high-end GPUs for AI work. Unlike the hyperscale clouds that sell hundreds of services, neocloud providers keep their catalog small and center it on raw compute, bare-metal or thin-VM access, and fast networking.
According to SemiAnalysis, it's a new breed of cloud compute provider focused on offering GPU rental.
Neocloud Traits
- GPU-first with the latest NVIDIA hardware.
- Light virtualization for native-like speed.
- Simple pricing without complicated clauses.
- Easy to access and launch clusters in hours, not weeks.
Growth of Neocloud Providers
The rise of AI products and the demand for hardware caused a surge in neocloud providers. They are built around the GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) model, where developers rent high-performance GPUs on demand instead of managing physical infrastructure.
Neocloud services provide much-needed flexibility, making it easy to scale AI workloads up or down instantly. That flexibility is especially valuable for training and inference with models that require significant compute.
Unstable Hardware Supply
The global computing market is no longer a predictable commodity cycle. Over the past several years, the industry has seen a series of "boom and bust" cycles.
There have been brief windows of price correction. Still, the overarching trend since 2020 has been defined by supply chain fragility and significant price spikes for core components.
Global instability, longer manufacturing times and expensive raw material mean this volatile pricing trend is likely to continue.
| Year | GPU Market Status | RAM & Memory Trends | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020/ 2021 |
Scarcity; prices reach 300% of MSRP due to high pandemic demand and crypto mining. | Prices rise steadily as global logistics fracture and remote work spikes. | Laptop Outlet (2025) |
| 2022 | Prices crash as supply surge due to the ETH "Merge," ending the mining boom. | Manufacturers overproduce to avoid shortages, leading to a market glut. | The Register (2022) |
| 2023 | Prices stabilize at retail. Availability of mid-range and high-end cards. | Record-low prices for DDR4/DDR5 as manufacturers clear excess inventory. | IntuitionLabs (2025) |
| 2024 | Focus shifts to AI silicon; consumer GPU supply become premium. | Prices rise as production shifts to High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI. | JPR (2025) |
| 2025 | High-end GPU availability tightens; focus shifts to AI data centers. | RAMpocalypse: Consumer DDR5 prices surge by over 160% in several regions. | Digital Watch (2025), DigWatch (2025) |
| 2026 | Structural shortage; enterprise lead times for GPUs stretches to 52 weeks. | RAM prices spikes and accounts for roughly 23% of a standard PC's total cost. | Gartner (2026), Astute Group (2026) |
Cost Savings
Neocloud rates are 70-80% cheaper than hyperscalers for the same silicon. Thunder Compute rents an on-demand A100 80 GB VM for $0.78/hr (source). By contrast, the same GPU on Oracle costs $4/hr (source).
Focus and Speed
Because they run only GPU clusters, neoclouds ship new hardware first and tune their networks for AI collective-communication patterns. This lets builders train larger models sooner and at higher throughput.
Neoclouds vs. Hyperscalers at a Glance
| Comparison point | Neocloud | Hyperscale Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Main goal | GPU compute | Full-stack services |
| Hardware cadence | Weeks after NVIDIA launch | Months after launch |
| Typical A100 price* | $0.78-$2.79 per GPU hr | $3.43-$5.07 per GPU hr |
| Bare-metal or thin VM | Default | Often no |
| Extra services | Fewer but targeted | Hundreds |
How to Pick the Right Neocloud
- Check available GPUs - If training at scale, look for infrastructure with at least 400 Gbps InfiniBand or RoCE.
- Evaluate storage bandwidth - Look for at least 250GB/s aggregate.
- Compare pricing models - On-demand for tests, reserved or spot for long runs.
- Understand network infrastructure - fat-tree or rail-optimized designs cut congestion.
- Run a benchmark - Fine-tune a familiar model to track tokens/second and total cost.
Neocloud Pricing
| Provider | A100 Price | H100 Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thunder Compute | $0.78 | $1.38 | US Central, on-demand VM |
| Vast.ai | $1.94 | $2.58 | Marketplace pricing |
| Hyperbolic | N/A | $2.69 | Decentralized network marketplace rate |
| RunPod | $1.39 | $2.89 | Secure Cloud on-demand pricing |
| Nebius | N/A | $3.85 | Public H100 on-demand pricing |
| Crusoe Cloud | $1.65 | $3.90 | Green energy, North Dakota region |
| CoreWeave | $2.70 | $6.16 | Public 8-GPU node price, normalized per GPU |
| Lambda | $2.79 | $3.99 | US West, on-demand VM |
Prices are public list rates from agents_resources/competition_pricing.json (June 2026).
Hyperscaler Pricing
| Provider | A100 Price | H100 Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | $3.43 | $6.88 | US on-demand |
| Azure | $3.67 | $6.98 | Linux NC A100 v4, US pricing |
| Oracle Cloud | $4.00 | $10.00 | BM bare-metal node price, normalized per GPU |
| Google Cloud | $5.07 | $11.06 | US on-demand pricing |
A Five-Step Action Plan
- Define the job - model size, training days, budget cap.
- Short-list three neocloud companies with GPUs in stock.
- Spin up a 4-GPU node and run your workflow end-to-end.
- Track dollars per thousand training tokens as the metric.
- Reserve capacity once you hit the target price-performance.
When to Stay on Your Current Cloud
If you need dozens of managed services, strict FedRAMP or HIPAA compliance in many regions, or deep integration with existing enterprise IAM, the big clouds may still be smoother. Many teams blend approaches: train on a neocloud, then deploy inference on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Final Thoughts on Neoclouds
Testing a neocloud is now easy. Thunder Compute offers instant A100 and H100 virtual machines starting at only $0.78 per GPU hour. Spin up a VM, move your data, and see if it beats your current bill.
Learn more at Thunder Compute.