Rethinking AI TCO: Why Cost per Token Is the Only Metric That Matters

NVIDIA argues that cost per token—the all-in cost to produce each delivered token—should replace traditional compute metrics like FLOPS per dollar as the primary way to evaluate AI infrastructure TCO. The article contends that cost per token uniquely accounts for hardware performance, software optimization, ecosystem support, and real-world utilization, and positions NVIDIA as delivering the industry's lowest cost per token.