The Definitive Guide toAI Data Centers
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GuideGlossaryDepreciation

Depreciation

Spreading an asset's cost over its useful life; book life and economic life can differ and reshape reported margins.

Current numbers

~$12–13B/GW/yrrevenue per GW per year — the depreciation clock that makes time-from-rack-to-first-job a million-dollar-per-week metric (contested — single-source)as of 2026-06 · register ↗
5-6 yr vs 2-3 yrGPU book life vs frontier-economic life — the depreciation fight the family choice feeds (CONTESTED)as of 2026 · register ↗
Meta 4→5.5 / AWS 6→5 yrHyperscalers moved selected server and network-asset depreciation lives in opposite directions: Meta moved certain assets to 5.5 years from a prior category range of 4–5 years, while Amazon moved a subset from 6 to 5 yearsas of 2025-01-01 · register ↗

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