The rise of AI has caused the price of PC components to skyrocket, infuriating anybody looking to make a new purchase or upgrade their gear. Graphics cards have become such a hot commodity that they’ve become completely unaffordable — and higher-end one’s, like Nvidia’s sought-after RTX 5090, are hard to even find in stock.
One reason for the price and availability issues may be industrial facilities in China buying up the workhorse cards and repurposing them for AI, as Tom’s Hardware reports. A video making the rounds on social media shows the inside of one of these facilities, a major operation that involves swapping out of the circuit board and fitting on a turbine-style cooler.
The goal is to “meet the high-density arrangement requirements of AI server chassis,” as IT media news website HKEPC noted, with each card occupying less space than a consumer-grade version. Where these cards end up being shipped to, made opaque by an industry of middlemen, remains unclear at best.
Meanwhile, individual consumers who aren’t interested in purchasing entire racks to run zombie AI servers are out of luck. An off-the-shelf RTX 5090 can cost well past an eye-watering $10,000 — multiples higher than its official MSRP of $1,999.
