This week's chart comes from Tomasz Tunguz at Theory Ventures, who has used public filings to trace AI spending from the power station to the agent. By converting every layer to dollars per watt per year, he finds that applications take 40% of the gross profit, neoclouds 28%, inference vendors 24%, data centres 5% and power 3%.
Although the chart is a useful map, the neocloud figure is measured before GPU depreciation, which is that layer's largest cost. CoreWeave grew revenue 168% last quarter and still lost $709 million. Its new multi-year contracts are priced at $20 to $25 per watt a year, close to the chart's entire $25 end price, so either customers pay far more or the layers above absorb the difference.
Nscale's latest IPO prospectus shows what sits behind that 28%. The London company has doubled its active GPUs to 50,000 in under three months and holds $105.8 billion of contracts, yet only $6.4 billion is live. It estimates revenue of $307.5 million for the first nine months of the year against losses of $1.69 billion. Financing for its $45 billion Anthropic campus is not yet agreed. Anthropic can cancel any tranche that arrives late.
Tunguz's chart describes how AI revenue is shared once capacity is running, but it leaves out depreciation, debt and delivery risk. Neoclouds receive a large share because they borrow the money and build against deadlines, while labs such as Anthropic keep the right to cancel.