B200: Volatility is Floored

In early to mid December, B200 rental pricing stayed in a pretty tight range around $3.02 to $3.08/ hour, even as headlines pushed the “next chip” narrative for B300s (4). By December 21st, a mix of concern regarding Blackwell supply and end of year buying led to a spike in pricing at $3.69, and volatility stayed high around 1.3 to 1.4 as nobody knew how long that market crunch would last. In early January, the conversation around B200s changed once the market started accepting the high GPU pricing, and the B200 spot price began going back down toward roughly $3.50 to $3.60 while volatility dropped quickly. That change in thinking continued as AWS raised GPU pricing by around 15% (2), which suggested the whole market had a higher baseline price. The most important break came in late January when China approved around 400,000 plus H200 chips, which reduced the need for buyers to chase the top-line GPUs through back channels, and B200 pricing dropped rapidly to about $2.65 on January 21st. After that drop, the market cooled off, with B200 pricing settling into a more normal range around $3.00 into early February as the big questions got answered and trading became less panic-driven. By February 10th, price movement looked more settled, and volatility sat near its floor around 89 points, which tends to be where things land once the market stops trading off every headline and starts pricing off fundamentals instead.