The biggest buyer and the biggest seller of these chips, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, both acknowledged that the frontier moves faster than the depreciation schedules used by big hyperscalers and neo-clouds.

The claim is judged on public statements made before 2026-07-09. True: transcripts or recordings show that both Satya Nadella and Jensen Huang said, in substance, that AI chips or GPUs become outdated or lose economic value faster than their accounting lives (or the 5–6 year depreciation schedules hyperscalers use). Examples would be Nadella saying he does not want to overbuy one chip generation because of how fast the frontier moves, or Huang saying older chips are hard to give away once new ones ship. Mostly true: both made such statements, but one ties them to obsolescence or useful life only by clear implication rather than explicitly. Mixed: only one of the two made such a statement. Mostly false: both talked about rapid chip progress, but neither said anything bearing on useful lives or depreciation. False: neither made such statements, or they said the opposite (for example, that current depreciation schedules are adequate).

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Debates the Future of Microsoft and AI (w/ Dwarkesh Patel and Dylan Patel) The Neuron · 13 November 2025

   “"I didn't want to go get stuck for four or five years of depreciation on one generation," he stated.”

2. E2 Nvidia’s new financial strategy does not compute The Verge · 19 August 2026

   ““When Blackwell starts shipping in volume, you couldn’t give Hoppers away,” Huang told attendees at the company’s AI conference, hyping up its latest GPU architecture.”

3. E3 Nvidia’s new financial strategy does not compute The Verge · 19 August 2026

   ““Customers continue to commit capacity for multi-year deployments, extending A100’s economic life toward a decade.””

4. E4 Here's another reason why the AI trade might need a bit of rethinking investingLive · 5 November 2025

   “Besides that, Nadella also makes mention to not wanting to overbuy one particular generation of GPUs considering the present bottleneck situation.”

E1 quotes Satya Nadella in a November 2025 interview saying he "didn't want to go get stuck for four or five years of depreciation on one generation," which links fast chip turnover directly to depreciation lives. E4 backs this up by paraphrasing him as not wanting to overbuy one GPU generation. E2 quotes Jensen Huang telling attendees at Nvidia's AI conference that once Blackwell ships in volume "you couldn't give Hoppers away"; the text around the quote, dated 2026-07-09, cites the same remark from GTC. That is the example of obsolescence the criteria name. E3 shows a separate argument that A100s keep a long economic life, but it does not cancel Huang's statement, so both men made statements of the kind the criteria require.