O'Driscoll: AI token output per dollar increases 10x every two years
Rory O'Driscoll · Anthropic Buys Compute From Elon & Commits $200BN to Google | Cerebras IPO | Ramp Raises at $40BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 14, 2026 · at 19:01
Rory O'Driscoll (General Partner at Scale Venture Partners) analyzes hardware and software efficiency gains lowering the unit cost of AI LLM tokens.
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“Every 18 months, you know, the raw performance of the chip gets, you know, roughly three X faster. Then on top of that, other optimizations, how they run LLMs, how they do all the quantization, all the other clever stuff that, you know, you can read about and try and understand gets another three X. So you're probably roughly 10 X-ing the number of tokens per unit of money every couple of years, right?”
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