AI Token Costs Drive Hybrid Infrastructure Decisions

Enterprise AI is entering a cost-conscious phase as inference spending climbs, forcing businesses to reconsider where models run and how much data they share externally. Dell's Kyle Dufresne notes a dramatic shift in token economics: three months ago, 80% of tokens came from frontier models; now 80% come from open models, driven by cost. Inference is growing faster than training and increasingly moving to the edge. Memory supply constraints are also pushing costs up, with 200% more demand expected against only 20% more supply next year, prompting many customers to buy components earlier.