In late March, OpenAI’s Sam Altman publicly acknowledged what many in the AI ecosystem have been observing: ChatGPT’s image generation tools have been rate-limited due to overwhelming demand and limited GPU availability.
The strain was especially visible after the rollout of ChatGPT's new image capabilities, which caused a spike in usage, forcing OpenAI to temporarily slow down requests to preserve infrastructure stability.
Greg Osuri, founder of Akash Network, echoed the sentiment, stating plainly: “Compute is scarce.” The situation is emblematic of a broader issue—centralized cloud providers are struggling to keep up with the pace of AI adoption and the increasing demand for high-performance compute resources.
GPUs Are in Short Supply - and It’s Getting Worse
The acceleration of AI use cases, particularly in generative models like ChatGPT, is compounding a hardware bottleneck. GPUs are not only expensive and power-intensive, but the infrastructure to deploy and scale them globally is heavily consolidated within a few hyperscalers. As a result, users and developers are beginning to feel the impact of limited access and surging prices.
According to data and anecdotal feedback, image generation tasks—especially for high-load styles like “Ghibli” art—have become constrained as firms impose usage limits. With energy demands and cost overhead rising in tandem, many are now asking what alternatives exist beyond the current centralized paradigm.
Akash Offers a Decentralized Alternative
The Akash Network presents a different model. By tapping into underutilized capacity across a decentralized network of providers, Akash enables a more elastic and cost-effective infrastructure option. Decentralized GPUs are already being deployed on the Akash Supercloud, offering users an accessible route to run compute-heavy tasks with lower overhead—both in cost and energy.
In contrast to centralized providers, Akash's distributed model reduces the strain on singular data centers, promotes energy efficiency, and improves accessibility for developers globally. Especially in scenarios where compute demand spikes unpredictably, a decentralized infrastructure like Akash can offer a more resilient alternative.
As AI continues to scale, access to GPUs will become an increasingly strategic bottleneck—and a growing opportunity for decentralized networks like Akash. The future of compute may not be about building bigger clouds, but distributing them more intelligently.
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