Allocation desk · End users only
GPU clusters and GPUaaS allocation. For the party running the workload.
Reserved clusters, bare metal and GPUaaS on B200, B300 and GB300 NVL72 — three to five year terms, 12–14 week lead time, from 512 GPUs to hyperscale. For hardware allocation the coverage is wider: H100 through GB300, plus RTX 6000 and RTX 5090. We hold no inventory and take no position. You contract directly with the operator or the channel, and nobody sits between you and them.
Who this desk is open to.
Stated plainly so nobody wastes a week finding out. The restriction is not posturing — it is the reason operators quote us real numbers instead of screening numbers.
We open a file for the party whose workload runs on the hardware and whose balance sheet stands behind the contract — or an advisor that party names in writing. Not brokers, not resellers, not intermediaries assembling a position to flip.
You contract directly with the operator or the OEM channel. We are not in the chain and we do not add one. If an allocation has already been shopped through four parties before reaching us, we pass on it — and so will the operator, which is the part that actually costs you.
The availability board reads without an email address and every mandate page says plainly what the work is. What a conversation buys you is a specific number against a specific requirement, which is a different thing from a price list.
Operators know we act for buyers. Buyers know we act for operators. Where a deal genuinely needs both ends assembled, we will work both — and every party at the table is told so at the outset. Disclosure is what keeps it clean, not exclusivity.
If you are a broker or reseller with a genuine named end user behind you, say so in the brief. We will act where the offtaker can be named and verified.
Two mandates, two sets of platforms.
Service is narrower than hardware, deliberately. GPUaaS and reserved clusters are current-generation Blackwell only — B200, B300 and GB300 NVL72, three to five year terms, 12 to 14 weeks to service. Hardware allocation runs wider, because allocation surfaces where it surfaces.
01GPUaaS, reserved clusters and bare metal
| Platform | Typical unit | Where it sits | Term | Lead time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B200 | 8-GPU HGX node · 512 GPUs and up | Channel allocation and new-build fleet | 3–5 years | 12–14 weeks |
| B300 | 8-GPU HGX node · 512 GPUs and up | Channel allocation and new-build fleet | 3–5 years | 12–14 weeks |
| GB300 NVL72 | 72-GPU rack · 120 kW+ per rack | Purpose-built liquid-cooled halls | 3–5 years | 12–14 weeks |
Current-generation Blackwell only. Lead time runs from executed contract to service.
02GPU hardware allocation
| Platform | Typical unit | Where it sits | Route to it |
|---|---|---|---|
| H100 SXM | 8-GPU HGX node | Secondary market and operator fleet turnover | Cancelled orders, fleet rotation |
| H200 SXM | 8-GPU HGX node | Fleet turnover as buyers rotate to Blackwell | Cancelled orders, fleet rotation |
| B200 | 8-GPU HGX node | OEM channel allocation | Channel position |
| B300 | 8-GPU HGX node | OEM channel allocation | Channel position |
| GB300 NVL72 | 72-GPU rack | OEM channel allocation | Channel position |
| RTX 6000 Blackwell | 4–8 GPU node | Inference, render and VDI channel | Distribution and channel |
| RTX 5090 | Dense inference and workstation node | Specialist channel | Distribution and channel |
Hardware allocation is a connection, not a sale. Quantities, terms and dates come from the holder of the allocation, direct to you.
On pricing. We do not price this hardware, because we do not own it and we do not sell it. Pricing comes from the operator or the OEM channel, direct to you. What a single rate card ignores is that price moves with scale, term, prepayment, power cost at the site, cooling type, fabric and how badly a partner needs an anchor tenant that quarter — so our work is getting your requirement in front of the partners whose position actually fits it, and holding them to the terms once they respond.
Four bands, and the constraint changes at each one.
What is hard about 512 GPUs is nothing like what is hard about 50,000. Find your band — the advisory work is different in kind, not just in size. The 12 to 14 week lead time holds across all four; what changes is the power and siting work behind it.
Proving a workload before committing capital. Short term, on-fleet, fast. These work best where production scale is credibly behind them.
The band where contract terms start costing real money — utilisation floors, burst rights, egress, refresh clauses. Most of the value here is in the paper, not the price.
Fabric topology, storage tier and power density become the specification. Fewer than twenty operators globally can hold this, and we know which ones can prove it.
No longer a compute purchase. It is a power, siting and delivery-schedule problem with GPUs attached — assembled as one transaction.
For hyperscalers, frontier labs and sovereign programmes
Above 50 MW, GPUs stop being the constraint. Power and schedule are.
At this scale the deal is not one purchase, it is three that have to arrive together: an energised site with the density and cooling to take 120 kW racks, allocation that lands on the schedule the site can hold, and a term structure that survives a platform refresh mid-contract. Normally that is three searches run by three teams who never meet. We hold relationships at every layer — operator, developer, utility, OEM channel and offtaker — so it can be assembled as one transaction, negotiated once, and closed without your position circulating a market that talks. Anonymous at first contact, MNDA before anything specific, and nothing about your requirement leaves the room.
Open a hyperscale file →Five things, and we can start.
Not a discovery process. These are the five facts an operator needs before a real number exists, so the sooner they are on the table the sooner you have one.
Identity
The end user, named.
Legal entity, and the parent or guarantor if they differ. If you are acting for the offtaker, their written authority to act.
Specification
Platform, count, and what it is running.
Training, fine-tuning or inference — it changes fabric, storage and the shape of the right contract more than the GPU model does.
Term
How long you will commit for.
Term and prepayment position are the two largest levers on price. A three-year commitment with a deposit is a different market from a six-month reservation.
Timing
Earliest and latest live dates.
Both, honestly. A latest date you can defend is worth more in a negotiation than an earliest date you cannot.
Funding
Where the money is.
Budgeted, board-approved, or contingent on a raise. All three are workable. Not knowing which is not.
Every platform, briefed plainly.
Facility requirements, allocation routes and the contract terms that matter, platform by platform. Size the requirement first with the estimator.
GB300 NVL72
72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs in one NVLink domain, liquid-cooled and specified to the facility from day one.
Read the brief →Blackwell UltraB300 clusters
HGX B300 allocation routes, density and the terms that matter at cluster scale.
Read the brief →BlackwellB200 clusters
Where HGX B200 fits against B300, and how to contract for it.
Read the brief →HopperH200 clusters
Allocation and reallocation when the previous generation is the right economic answer.
Read the brief →Asked most often.
The first two are the ones that decide whether we are useful to you at all.
01Do you work with brokers, resellers or intermediaries?
No. This desk is open to the end user — the party whose workload runs on the hardware and whose balance sheet stands behind the contract — or an advisor that party names in writing.
We do not work with brokers assembling a position to resell, and we do not join chains where the same allocation has been shopped through four parties before it reaches us. The principled reason is that it is not what we do. The practical reason is that operators will not quote into a chain, so nobody in it ever sees a real number.
If you are an intermediary with a genuine named end user behind you, that is a different conversation and we will have it.
02Can you send a GPU rate card?
No. We are not a supplier — we do not buy, sell or hold anything, so there is no rate card of ours to send.
Any rate card you have been sent from elsewhere is close to worthless anyway. Price on a cluster moves with scale, term, prepayment, power cost at the site, cooling type, network fabric and how badly the operator needs an anchor that quarter. The only number that matters is the one a partner will sign against your requirement.
We could not send one if we wanted to. We hold no inventory and set no prices — every number comes from the operator or the channel partner, direct to you. What we do is get your requirement to the partners whose position fits it, tell you where their response sits against comparable deals we have seen, and negotiate the terms around it.
03What is the smallest cluster you will work on?
512 GPUs, and only with a credible path to production scale behind it. Below that the economics do not support advisory involvement on either side, and you are genuinely better off on public cloud on-demand until the workload is proven.
04Can you actually deliver at hyperscale?
Above roughly 50 MW the binding constraint stops being GPUs and becomes energised power, delivery schedule, and cooling capable of rack densities over 120 kW.
We work that layer directly — powered shell and build-to-suit, interconnection position, PPAs and behind-the-meter options, liquid cooling retrofit against live halls — and assemble compute, capacity and power into one transaction instead of three separate searches on three timelines. That is the specific case for using us at this scale.
05Should we buy hardware or contract GPUaaS?
It turns on utilisation and refresh exposure.
Sustained utilisation above roughly seventy per cent on a workload you can forecast three years out favours owning — if you can secure the power and the hall, which is the part most buyers underestimate. Spiky or uncertain demand, or a workload that will migrate to the next platform inside eighteen months, favours a reserved GPUaaS commitment where refresh risk sits with the operator.
We model both against your actual load profile before recommending either, and we are paid the same way regardless of which you pick.
06What is the lead time?
On GPUaaS and reserved clusters: first response within one business day, and 12 to 14 weeks from executed contract to service across B200, B300 and GB300 NVL72. Where the site and power position are already in hand that holds firm; where a hall still needs building, siting and energisation set the schedule rather than silicon. Hardware allocation moves on its own clock — it depends entirely on what has surfaced, so we tell you what is reachable rather than quoting a standard window.
07What does this cost us?
Nothing directly on a buy-side mandate. Winning business carries a cost of sale that exists whether or not we are involved, and that is where we are paid from — so our involvement is funded by the transaction rather than added to it. We hold no inventory and take no position, so nothing we bring forward is something we need you to take.
Tell us what you are trying to run.
Platform, count and date is enough to start. If you have a bill of materials, better. Anonymous first contact is fine and an MNDA is available before anything specific is discussed.
Hyperscale or sovereign programme?
If the requirement is above 50 MW, write to sales@thechiefnegotiators.com directly. Those files are handled off the form.
Operators with fleet to fill
Send the specification and we will come back with qualified demand, KYC completed on the ultimate offtaker before any introduction.
For operators →