The Definitive Guide toAI Data Centers
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DPU · Data Processing Unit

A programmable NIC (e.g. BlueField) that offloads networking, storage and security from the host CPU.

Current numbers

$1,500Illustrative installed DPU priceas of 2026-09-05 · register ↗
800 Gb/sBlueField-4 DPU throughput (STX storage architecture), ~6x BlueField-3 compute; WEKA/VAST/DDN platformsas of 2026 · register ↗
$270k → $256.4k per nodeHistorical H100 compute-node BOM before/after host and DPU optimization (SemiAnalysis, October 2024)as of 2024-10-03 historical example · register ↗

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