Global · price of compute
Who borrows against GPUs, and at what interest rate
Loans secured on GPUs and a strong customer's contract cost SOFR plus 2.25–6 percentage points, about 6.1%–9.9% today (SOFR 3.87%, 2026-10-08). CoreWeave's unsecured notes pay 9%–9.75%, 458bp–539bp over the 10-year Treasury when issued; the hyperscalers' latest five-year bonds paid 14bp–98bp over (SEC filings, checked 2026-10-11).
Updated 11 October 2026 · data build 2026-10-10 · how we know · corrections
A strong customer contract lowers the rate: a median 6.4% against 9.4% on GPUs alone
Median all-in rate today on loans secured on GPUs, by what else backs them: SOFR (3.87%, 2026-10-08) plus each loan's margin; fixed coupons as stated. Calculated
Green: GPUs plus an investment-grade customer contract. Amber: GPUs plus other customer contracts. Red: GPUs alone. Floating loans are shown at today's SOFR plus the margin; fees, discounts and interest-rate hedges are left out.
Source: CoreWeave: DDTL 2.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 2.1, new tranche of DDTL 2.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 3.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 4.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 5.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 5.5 · Nscale: Macquarie Senior Facility · Nebius Group: first asset-backed · as of 2026-10-11 · FRED SOFR 2026-10-08 · Compiled by StackPath
The ledger: 61 loans and notes from 20 borrowers
One row per facility, read in the filing unless marked 'reported'. Amounts in billions of the stated currency. Measured
Download CSV ↓Source: CoreWeave: DDTL 2.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 2.1, new tranche of DDTL 2.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 3.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 4.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 5.0 · CoreWeave: DDTL 5.5 · CoreWeave: vendor financing · Nscale: vendor financing · as of 2026-10-11 · every row links its filing in the CSV · Compiled by StackPath
Over Treasuries: hyperscalers 14bp–98bp, CoreWeave 458bp–539bp, xAI's 2025 notes 821bp
Fixed-rate dollar notes: coupon minus the 10-year Treasury yield on the month of issue (our arithmetic). Maturities differ (mostly five to six years), so this is a rough guide to how lenders price each borrower. Calculated
Green: hyperscalers. Amber: neoclouds. Red: AI labs. Grey: data-centre developers and SPVs. xAI's 12.5% notes were repaid in March 2026 after its merger with SpaceX, which then sold 5.35% notes due 2031.
Source: Alphabet: 4.875% senior unsecured notes due 2031 · Amazon: 4.800% senior unsecured notes due 2031 · Meta: 4.550% senior unsecured notes due 2031 · SpaceX: 5.350% senior unsecured notes due 2031 · Oracle: 4.950% senior unsecured notes due 2031 · IREN: USPP, GPU Financing · FRED DGS10 · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath
Euro debt is cheaper for the same borrower: CoreWeave pays 8.5% in euros, 9.63% in dollars
Same borrower, euro notes against its nearest-maturity dollar notes; and the loans of European-headquartered borrowers. Measured
| Borrower | Euro note | Coupon | Dollar note | Coupon | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 3.350% senior unsecured notes due 2032 (EUR) | 3.35% | 4.800% senior unsecured notes due 2031 | 4.8% | 145bp |
| CoreWeave | 8.50% senior unsecured notes due 2032 (EUR) | 8.5% | 9.625% senior unsecured notes due 2032 | 9.625% | 112bp |
Amazon's two notes were issued four months apart (March and July 2026) while Treasury yields rose; CoreWeave's were priced together.
Source: Amazon filing · Amazon filing · CoreWeave filing · Nscale: pre-IPO · Nebius Group: 2.625% convertible senior notes due March 2033 · Nebius Group: 2.75% convertible senior notes due 2032 · Nebius Group: 4.50% convertible notes due 2034 · Mistral AI: first debt raise · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath
The base moved: the 10-year Treasury is 5.22%, up from 4.13% a year ago; SOFR 3.87%
Monthly average of daily rates. Floating GPU loans reset with SOFR; new fixed-rate notes price off Treasuries. Measured
Source: FRED DGS10 · FRED SOFR · as of 2026-10-08 · Compiled by StackPath
Depreciation lives run from 5 to 6 years; only Amazon has shortened one
Useful life each company states for servers and network equipment (the category that holds GPUs) in its latest annual filing, and changes since 2022. Measured
| Company | Life (years) | Since | Changes | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft (hyperscaler) | 2–6 | FY2023 (from 1 Jul 2022) | FY2023: 4 → 6 (+$3.7bn operating income, +$3.0bn net income FY2023) | 10-K FY2026 (year to 30 Jun 2026) |
| Alphabet (hyperscaler) | 6 | FY2023 (Jan 2023) | 2023: servers 4 → 6; certain network equipment 5 → 6 (−$3.9bn depreciation, +$3.0bn net income 2023) | 10-K FY2025 |
| Meta (hyperscaler) | 5–5.5 | 2025-01-01 | 2022 Q2: 4 → 4.5 (combined 2022 effect below); 2022 Q4: 4.5 → 5 (−$860m depreciation, +$693m net income 2022 (both 2022 changes)); 2025-01-01: → 5.5 (most servers and network assets) (−$2.92bn depreciation, +$2.59bn net income 2025) | 10-K FY2025 |
| Amazon (hyperscaler) | 5–6 | 2025-01-01 (subset to 5 years) | 2024-01-01: servers 5 → 6 (−$3.2bn D&A, +$2.5bn net income 2024); 2025-01-01: subset 6 → 5 (+$1.4bn D&A, −$1.0bn net income 2025, mainly AWS) | 10-K FY2025 |
| Oracle (hyperscaler) | 1–6 (servers and networking 6) | FY2025 (from 1 Jun 2024) | FY2023: servers 4 → 5 (−$434m operating expenses FY2023); FY2025: servers and networking 5 → 6 (−$733m operating expenses, +$573m net income FY2025) | 10-K FY2026 (year to 31 May 2026) |
| CoreWeave (neocloud) | 6 | 2023-01-01 | 2023-01-01: 5 → 6 (−$20m total expenses 2023, +$0.10 per share) | 10-K FY2025 |
| Nebius Group (neocloud) | 5 | 2026-01-01 | to 2025: 4 (n/a); 2026-01-01: 4 → 5 (expected −$167.6m depreciation FY2026; actual H1 2026 −$86.1m depreciation, +$75.7m net income) | 20-F FY2025 + 6-K Q2 2026 |
| Nscale (neocloud) | 5–6 | – | – | S-1 (18 Sep 2026) |
| IREN (neocloud) | 5 | – | – | 10-K FY2026 (year to 30 Jun 2026) |
Source: Microsoft 10-K FY2026 (year to 30 Jun 2026) · Alphabet 10-K FY2025 · Meta 10-K FY2025 · Amazon 10-K FY2025 · Oracle 10-K FY2026 (year to 31 May 2026) · CoreWeave 10-K FY2025 · Nebius Group 20-F FY2025 + 6-K Q2 2026 · Nscale S-1 (18 Sep 2026) · IREN 10-K FY2026 (year to 30 Jun 2026) · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath
Money and wear inside a GPU-hour: $0.78–$1.61 an hour, depending on the rate and the life
Illustration: the hourly payment that repays one H100's share of a server, with interest, over its life (a loan-style annuity), at the borrowing rates in the ledger. Our arithmetic; not any company's cost. Illustration
| Rate | 3-year life | 4-year life | 5-year life | 6-year life |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6% | $1.43 | $1.11 | $0.91 | $0.78 |
| 9.6% | $1.53 | $1.20 | $1.00 | $0.87 |
| 12.5% | $1.61 | $1.28 | $1.08 | $0.95 |
An 8-GPU DGX H100 server sold for about $269k in May 2023, $33,600 per GPU (analyst figure recorded in Epoch AI's hardware database, CC BY 4.0). Server only: excludes the building, power, networking beyond the server and operating costs. Rates: 6%: about SOFR + 2.25% on loans backed by a strong customer contract (CoreWeave DDTL 4.0, Nebius, IREN). 9.6%: CoreWeave's unsecured notes (9.0-9.75%). 12.5%: xAI's 2025 secured notes. Assumes 100% of hours (a real fleet runs below that, which raises the charge per hour sold). For scale: the median on-demand H100 list price is $5.33 an hour (see GPU prices).
Source: Epoch AI, Machine learning hardware (CC BY 4.0) · the ledger above · as of 2026-10-11 · Compiled by StackPath
Shortening the life from 6 years to 3 multiplies the hourly charge by about 1.7–1.8; moving from a 6% to a 12.5% loan adds 13–22%. The life matters more than the interest rate, which is why the depreciation debate matters for GPU-cloud economics.
Our reading. Lenders price GPU debt mainly on who rents the GPUs. Backed by an investment-grade customer's contract, a GPU loan costs a median 6.4% today; with other customers' contracts 8%; on the GPUs alone 9.4%. CoreWeave's unsecured bonds priced 458bp–539bp over Treasuries, against 14bp–98bp for the hyperscalers that are both its customers and its competitors. Europe's two neoclouds with SEC filings, Nebius and Nscale, borrow in dollars on the same terms as US peers, so a lower euro base rate does not yet reach European GPU builds. The wider money flows (hyperscaler bonds, leases, buybacks) are on who pays for AI.
Rates are contractual: coupons on notes, and SOFR plus the stated margin on floating loans (all-in today = latest SOFR + margin; fees, original-issue discounts and hedges are not included). Spread over Treasuries = coupon minus the 10-year Treasury yield on the issue date (our arithmetic); maturities differ, so it is a rough comparison, not a credit spread. Kind: 'measured' rows were read in the filing itself; 'reported' rows rest on company releases or press and are marked as such. Depreciation lives are the ranges companies state for servers and network equipment; a longer life lowers yearly depreciation and raises reported profit, without changing cash spent. ICE BofA and Moody's corporate spread indices are not shown: their licences do not allow republication. 16 further claims (among them Crusoe's final loan spread, the terms of Mistral's $830m loan and vendor residual-value claims) could not be checked in a primary source and are left out; the list is in the dataset.
Questions people ask
- What interest rate do neoclouds pay on GPU loans?
- From their filings: SOFR plus 2.25–6 points when the loan is backed by GPUs and an investment-grade customer's contract (Nebius, IREN, Lambda, CoreWeave DDTL 2.0's top tier); SOFR plus 4.5–5.5 points for CoreWeave's later facilities backed by weaker customers; and up to SOFR plus 9.62 on CoreWeave's first loan in 2023. SOFR was 3.87% on 2026-10-08.
- How does CoreWeave's borrowing cost compare with Microsoft, Amazon or Google?
- CoreWeave's unsecured dollar notes pay 9%–9.75%, 458bp–539bp over the 10-year Treasury when issued. Amazon's, Alphabet's, Meta's and Oracle's latest five-year dollar bonds paid 14bp–98bp over. Microsoft issued no bond in 2025–26.
- What is SOFR?
- The Secured Overnight Financing Rate: what banks pay to borrow cash overnight against US Treasuries, published daily by the New York Fed. Most US floating-rate loans now charge SOFR plus a fixed margin (the spread). SOFR was 3.87% on 2026-10-08, against 4.12% a year earlier.
- Is euro debt cheaper than dollar debt for AI companies?
- For the same borrower, yes: CoreWeave's euro notes due 2032 pay 8.5% against 9.63% on its dollar notes of the same maturity, 112bp less, because euro base rates are lower. CoreWeave swaps the euros back into dollars. Euro-denominated GPU loans are otherwise rare in the filings we read.
- How many years do companies depreciate GPUs over?
- Their 10-Ks give lives for servers and network equipment: Microsoft 2–6 years, Alphabet 6 years, Meta 5–5.5 years, Amazon 5–6 years, Oracle 1–6 (servers and networking 6) years, CoreWeave 6 years, Nebius Group 5 years, Nscale 5–6 years, IREN 5 years. Amazon is the only hyperscaler to have shortened a life (a subset from six to five years in 2025); Meta lengthened to 5.5.