Originally published on AI Tech Connect.
The break-even is a variable, and it moved Here is the whole argument in one sentence: the volume at which self-hosting beats buying inference is not a constant you look up, it is the output of a small model whose inputs became genuinely volatile through 2026, and hardware cost inflation moved that output against owning. This matters because of how the decision is usually made. A team runs the comparison once, in a spreadsheet, during a planning cycle. They reach a conclusion. The conclusion becomes a slide, then an assumption, then a fact that nobody revisits. Eighteen months later the infrastructure reflects a calculation performed against prices that no longer exist. That failure mode is not a maths failure. It is a process failure, and the fix is a process: a model you own, a short…
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