GPU computational performance per dollar
About this data
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Notes on our processing step for this indicator
- Reporting a time series of AI investments in nominal prices (i.e., without adjusting for inflation) means it makes little sense to compare observations across time; it is therefore not very useful. To make comparisons across time possible, one has to take into account that prices change (e.g., there is inflation).
- It is not obvious how to adjust this time series for inflation, and we debated it at some length within our team.
- It would be straightforward to adjust the time series for price changes if we knew the prices of the specific goods and services that these investments purchased. This would make it possible to calculate a volume measure of AI investments, and it would tell us how much these investments bought. But such a metric is not available. While a comprehensive price index is not available, we know that the cost for some crucial AI technology has fallen rapidly in price.
- In the absence of a comprehensive price index that captures the price of AI-specific goods and services, one has to rely on one of the available metrics for the price of a bundle of goods and services. In the end we decided to use the US Consumer Price Index (CPI).
- The US CPI does not provide us with a volume measure of AI goods and services, but it does capture the opportunity costs of these investments. The inflation adjustment of this time series of AI investments therefore lets us understand the size of these investments relative to whatever else these sums of money could have purchased.
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Citations
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To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: GPU computational performance per dollar”, part of the following publication: Charlie Giattino, Edouard Mathieu, Veronika Samborska, and Max Roser (2023) - “Artificial Intelligence”. Data adapted from Epoch. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gpu-price-performance [online resource]How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Epoch (2024) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
Epoch (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “GPU computational performance per dollar” [dataset]. Epoch, “Trends in Machine Learning Hardware” [original data]. Retrieved April 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gpu-price-performance