Does six-year GPU depreciation mean six years of profitability?
By Nathan Benaich (Air Street Capital)
2025 annual filings · reviewed October 11, 2026
No. Depreciation allocates an asset’s cost over its estimated accounting life; it does not guarantee customer demand, cash flow, or an adequate return on capital. CoreWeave’s 2025 annual report assigns technology equipment a six-year useful life. Amazon reports five to six years for servers and networking equipment, after shortening the estimate for a subset from six to five years effective January 1, 2025 because of faster technological development, particularly in AI and machine learning. These are equipment-category estimates, not measured lifespans for every GPU model.
How to read this finding
For a simplified $60,000 asset with zero residual value, straight-line depreciation is $10,000 a year over six years versus $15,000 over four. The longer schedule reduces annual depreciation expense by $5,000 while leaving the purchase cash outlay unchanged. This is an illustration, not a GPU price quote. To assess returns, examine contracted and renewal revenue, utilization, operating costs, financing, and eventual resale proceeds. A fully depreciated GPU can still earn revenue; one with remaining book value can become uneconomic. Book value, resale value, and profitability measure different things.
Company filings and hardware documentation reviewed October 11, 2026. Accounting examples use 2025 annual reports; vendor claims are attributed. Research citations do not measure profitability, and this index has no rental-price or resale-value series.
Benaich, Nathan. “Does six-year GPU depreciation mean six years of profitability?” State of AI Report Compute Index. Web page updated 2026-10-11; data periods as specified above.
