The AI compute gap: Enterprises are buying infrastructure faster than they can measure what it costs

A VentureBeat Pulse survey of 107 enterprises finds AI infrastructure investment accelerating faster than operational maturity. Only 21% run AI at production scale, while 83% report GPU utilization of 50% or less and fewer than half can rigorously track AI compute costs.

The findings point to a growing compute gap as enterprises chase specialized AI clouds and new vendors before fully understanding the economics of existing infrastructure. This could shift buying criteria toward observability, utilization management, and total cost of ownership rather than raw model or token pricing.