Published Oct 22, 2026, 4:41 AM ET · Updated 22 days ago · 1 source

AI’s hidden storage bill: What inference leaves behind

MIT Technology Review
MIT Technology Review
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Original Report

Ask most executives to picture the cost of AI and they’ll likely see GPUs—racks of accelerators with gigawatts of power—and a waitlist for silicon. But that picture leaves something out: Data storage costs. What happens to data after a model responds? Much of the back-end data that’s generated—from billions of daily prompts, images, and videos—needs…