VentureBeat survey finds 79% of enterprises report GPUs idle half the time or more

Enterprises are buying AI compute the way some people buy gym memberships. The commitment is real. The attendance is optional. New data from VentureBeat Intelligence shows that 79% of 218 respondents who shared GPU utilization figures said their GPUs are busy half the time or less. The finding comes from three monthly VB Pulse surveys spanning July through September. These are companies already running AI in production, not ones still kicking the tires. Underuse is not slowing the shopping spree. Among the companies reporting low utilization, 70% said they plan to adopt a new, additional or replacement AI compute platform within the next 12 months. The numbers behind the idle hardware The September wave of the VB Pulse survey found that 81% of 68 production AI enterprises reported GPU utilization at or below 50%. Earlier monthly surveys landed in a similar range, with 80-83% reporting utilization of 50% or less. Some 31% of respondents said their GPUs do useful work only 25% of the time or less. In the September data, 71% of respondents with low GPU utilization said they plan to adopt new AI compute platforms within 12 months. Across all 102 qualified respondents in that wave, 63% ...