a16z chart: GPU rental prices hold firm while token prices fall, a Jevons-style pattern

Nathan LeClaire flagged an a16z Growth chart, compiled by Citadel Securities from Ornn, Silicon Data and Bloomberg data as of August 2026, that tracks the H100 GPU rental price against a token-price expenditure index. In late spring the two moved down together, but from July token prices kept falling, with the index dropping from roughly 1.6 to about 1.0, while the H100 rental price stayed at around $2.7 an hour. The chart is titled "Jevons: Compute Prices Rise As Token Prices Fall": cheaper tokens appear to be lifting demand for compute rather than easing it. Theo (t3.gg) quote-posted it with the comment "Called it".