CCST · Index 1 of 4 · AI Build-Out Family · daily scrape · biweekly composite
Compute Spot Tightness
How tight is AI compute on the spot market right now? Hourly GPU rental rates, availability across 40+ cloud providers, and cross-generation price ratios — aggregated daily into a 0-100 regime score. High score = compute is scarce, cascading demand across the GPU stack. Low score = supply is catching up.
Provisional · 1/2 layers live · rental = in development (v2) · 80d history. The composite reflects availability only. The rental-tightness signal is held for v2 — actual $/h versus a per-chip depreciation curve, on median provider-weighted prices — rather than publish a floor-price approximation that can read backwards.
81 points · since 2026-05-26
Layer breakdown
Held for v2. The honest signal is whether old silicon holds value beyond its expected depreciation path — actual $/h vs a per-chip decline curve, a direct read on the AI-chip depreciation debate. It needs median, provider-weighted prices; the cross-generation ratios below are shown as developing data, not yet scored.
Provider count per GPU model + availability flag. Fewer providers + "Limited" tags = tighter supply.
Cross-generation price ratios Leading derivative · 3-12M lead
Ratios between GPU generations reveal demand structure. Persistent legacy-gen pricing post-new-gen-launch is a strong regime-shift signal.
Legacy frontier vs current frontier. Higher = cascading demand across generations.
Legacy training tier vs frontier training tier. Higher = legacy still economically wanted.
Next-gen premium within Hopper family. Spot-market quirks possible.
Per-tier breakdown
| Tier | GPUs tracked | Avg hourly $ | Avg providers | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier | 3 | $4.88 | 8 | 40% |
| Legacy training | 1 | $1.88 | 2 | 30% |
| Agentic | 4 | $0.96 | 10 | 20% |
| Longtail | 3 | $1.07 | 3 | 10% |
Equity Gap · CCST vs Compute Stocks Diverges 1-6M ahead
CCST composite tracks spot-market compute tightness directly. The equity basket (NVDA, AMD, ORCL, VRT) reflects what the market has already priced in. Divergence between the two is the actionable signal: index rising while stocks lag = bullish setup.
| Ticker | Latest price | 30d return |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | $216.85 | 2.3% |
| AMD | $469.45 | -15.0% |
| ORCL | $142.07 | 12.9% |
| VRT | $264.63 | -12.1% |
AI Build-Out Index Family 4 indices · supply-side AI hardware tracking
CCST · TAISP · MHP · STP — four independent indices, each with its own data source, equity basket, and equity-gap signal. Read them together: when one moves before the others, that's the rotation signal. (Agentic-demand-side tracking lives in the separate Agentic Demand Index.)
AI Build-Out Index — equal-weighted average of the 4 live indices below (4 of 4 reporting). Each index counts once; one with no current reading drops out rather than being imputed.
- CCST You are hereCompute Spot Tightness90.0 / 100 TightSpot GPU rental + cross-gen ratiosDaily scrape · biweekly composite
Spot market for GPU compute — rental rates, availability, and cross-generation price ratios (H100/B200, A100/H100). High = compute scarce.
- TAISPTaiwan AI Supply Pulse96.0 / 100 TightTaiwan ODM + OSAT + foundry revenueMonthly · TWSE filings
Monthly revenue from 25 Taiwan-listed AI hardware suppliers across 5 layers — AI server ODMs, OSAT, foundry, substrate, cooling. Audited filings, no analyst noise.
Open index → - MHPMemory / HBM Pulse98.0 / 100 TightHBM Big-3 supply + equipment + packagingMonthly · 21st
The HBM bottleneck that gates AI accelerator shipments. SK Hynix / Samsung / Micron — when they sell out, the AI capex ceiling is set. Lead-vs-coincident divergence signal 2-4 months ahead of revenue print.
Open index → - STPSemicap / Test Pulse89.0 / 100 TightEquipment cycle gating silicon supplyMonthly · 18th
Equipment cycle that gates silicon supply. ASML / AMAT / LRCX / Tokyo Electron order books → fab capacity 6-12 months later. Cycle-stage detector reads front-end vs back-end gap.
Open index →
Methodology
CCST is the first of the Closelook AI Build-Out Index Family — a 4-index suite tracking the AI hardware supply chain (Compute Spot Tightness · Taiwan AI Supply Pulse · Memory/HBM Pulse · Semicap/Test Pulse). Each index has its own data sources, equity basket, and equity-gap signal. Closelook Agentic Usage Pulse (AUP), tracking demand-side AI adoption, is a separate standalone index in its own track.
CCST focuses on the spot market for GPU compute: hourly rental rates, availability across 40+ providers, and cross-generation price ratios. Daily scrape, cron-driven, no manual touch.
How the composite is built. Each layer is scored only when it carries a real signal — a layer we cannot yet measure returns nothing and drops out, and the remaining weights renormalise. We never fill a gap with a neutral 50. Live layers are blended by weight × confidence, so a thin or provisional signal cannot dominate. The reading carries a coverage tag (how many layers are live, and the rental scoring mode) so it is never read as more settled than it is.
Rental signal — v1 and roadmap. Most tracked GPUs are prior-generation, which should depreciate as new gens land — so flat is not neutral. An old GPU holding its rate has beaten the depreciation curve, which is a demand signal, and a direct, data-driven test of the debate over whether AI chips depreciate far faster than hyperscaler accounting assumes. v1 approximates this from cross-generation price ratios (legacy vs frontier). v2 replaces it with an explicit per-chip expected-depreciation curve — actual $/h versus the launch-date-and-age decline path — on median, provider-weighted prices.
Composite 70+ = tight (cascading demand, supply pressure). 40–70 = neutral. Below 40 = loose (supply catching up, depreciation normalising).
Index reading is a diary entry on our process, not investment advice.