https://archive.ph/M98Y7
"The firms have also managed to cut hardware costs by making better use of old machines. Servers need to be upgraded less frequently than first thought, making clouds cheaper to run. The three tech giants have announced extensions to their average server lifetime from three to four years. On July 28th Microsoft went one better and said that it was extending it to six years, saving the firm about $4bn in 2023. aws is still running some servers that it bought in 2006.
Taking chip design in-house has cut the costs of hardware by winning back margin from chip suppliers. aws’s Graviton chips, designed by a team it acquired in 2015, are leading the market. Google offers Tensor Processing Units, designed to boost machine-learning (ml) capabilities, among other silicon. Microsoft is said to be trying to develop custom chips, too. In January it poached one of Apple’s top chip designers.Even as costs have fallen, prices have not followed suit, keeping margins high."
