Wednesday, April 16, 2025

How Big is GPU As a Service Market?

Opinions seem to differ on the importance of language models and therefore  graphics processor unit operations provided “as a service” by cloud computing as a service giants including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Azure, for example. 


Current forecasts suggest that the single-digit billions (U.S. dollars) GPU as a service market could grow to about $36 billion in annual revenues within five years. While significant, such revenue forecasts might not be so large in relation to the capital investment being made to support GPU as a service capabilities. 


GPU as a Service Market Estimates  (2025-2030)

Year

Global Market Size (USD Billions)

U.S. Market Size (USD Billions)

Global Growth Rate (%)

U.S. Growth Rate (%)

Sources

2025

$8.20

$3.40

31.50%

29.80%

Grand View Research, MarketsandMarkets

2026

$11.10

$4.50

35.40%

32.40%

Gartner, IDC

2027

$15.20

$6.10

36.90%

35.60%

Forrester Research, Allied Market Research

2028

$20.70

$8.30

36.20%

36.10%

Mordor Intelligence, Technavio

2029

$27.50

$10.90

32.90%

31.30%

Emergen Research, IMARC Group

2030

$35.80

$14.10

30.20%

29.40%

Fortune Business Insights, Research and Markets


But GPU as a service is a subset of “AI as a service,” which is generally an order of magnitude greater than GPU as a service in any given year. 


AI as a Service Market Revenue Estimates (2025-2030)

Year

Global Revenue (USD Billions)

U.S. Revenue (USD Billions)

Global Growth Rate (%)

U.S. Growth Rate (%)

Sources

2025

$26.50

$11.80

34.20%

32.60%

Based on pre-2025 trends from Markets and Markets, Grand View Research

2026

$36.80

$16.10

38.90%

36.40%

Projections extrapolated from Gartne³, IDC forecast models

2027

$52.10

$22.40

41.60%

39.10%

Aligned with long-term trends identified by Allied Market Research

2028

$73.50

$31.20

41.10%

39.30%

Derived from Mordor Intelligence⁶, Technavio market analyses

2029

$101.90

$42.80

38.60%

37.20%

Based on growth curves projected by Emergen Research

2030

$138.60

$57.90

36.00%

35.30%

Consistent with Fortune Business Insights, Research and Markets


It also is fair to note that observers disagree a bit about which industry verticals will be the biggest users and beneficiaries of GPU as a service, as is the case also for estimates of which industries are likely to be the greatest beneficiaries and users of AI as a service. 


There seems general agreement that some industries will probably not be big users of either AI or GPU as a service. Agriculture, construction, hospitality and tourism, mining and government tend to be among those industries. 


Industry Vertical

Primary Operations

Why Unlikely to Be High GPUaaS Users

Key Constraints

Agriculture,  Forestry

Crop production, livestock management, forestry operations

Limited use of LLMs or AI; focus on IoT and basic analytics rather than compute-intensive tasks

Low data complexity, cost sensitivity, and limited scalability of AI applications

Construction

Building infrastructure, urban development, heavy machinery operations

Minimal reliance on LLMs; AI use limited to project management and basic design, not GPU-intensive

High capital costs prioritize physical assets over advanced compute infrastructure

Hospitality, Tourism

Hotels, restaurants, travel services, event management

Basic AI for customer service (e.g., chatbots) doesn’t require extensive GPU resources; low data volume

Focus on human-centric services, limited need for real-time complex processing

Public Administration

Government services, regulatory compliance, public policy implementation

Constrained by budgets and data privacy; AI use limited to basic automation, not large-scale LLM training

Bureaucratic inertia, regulatory restrictions, and preference for on-premises systems

Education (Traditional)

K-12 schools, universities, vocational training

Limited use of LLMs beyond administrative automation; cost barriers and focus on human-led instruction

Budget constraints, low computational needs, and ethical concerns around AI use

Mining, Quarrying

Mineral extraction, resource exploration, heavy equipment operations

AI limited to predictive maintenance and geospatial analysis, not requiring high GPU compute

Harsh environments, focus on physical operations, and low data-driven workflows

Waste Management,  Remediation

Waste collection, recycling, environmental cleanup

Minimal AI adoption; basic analytics for logistics don’t demand GPUaaS

Low-margin industry, limited scalability of AI, and focus on operational efficiency


But some industry verticals are generally considered to be heavier users. Drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry; fraud detection and risk modeling in financial services and code generation in the technology business provide examples. 


Autonomous vehicles and content creation are other verticals where heavy use of AI is likely or necessary. 


Industry Vertical

Primary GPUaaS Use Cases

Key Drivers for Adoption

Estimated Impact

Healthcare, Life Sciences

Drug discovery, genomic analysis, medical imaging, virtual health assistants

Faster drug development, improved diagnostics, personalized medicine

High: Accelerates life-saving innovations and reduces R&D costs

Financial Services

Fraud detection, risk modeling, algorithmic trading, customer service automation

Low-latency predictions, regulatory compliance, competitive edge

High: Enhances accuracy and speed in high-stakes transactions

Technology,  Cloud Services

NLP, code generation, enterprise AI platforms, cloud-based AI services

Scalable AI infrastructure, market leadership in AI services

Very High: Powers AI ecosystems and serves other industries

Media,  Entertainment

Content creation, video transcoding, digital avatars, gaming AI

Demand for immersive, personalized content and real-time processing

Moderate-High: Drives innovation in creative and gaming sectors

Automotive,  Transportation

Autonomous driving, traffic optimization, vehicle design simulation

Safety, scalability of autonomous systems, synthetic data generation

High: Critical for advancing self-driving technology

Retail,  E-commerce

Chatbots, personalized marketing, inventory management, sentiment analysis

Enhanced customer experience, operational efficiency

Moderate-High: Boosts sales and customer satisfaction

Telecom 

Network optimization, virtual assistants, predictive maintenance

Cost reduction, improved service quality, data-heavy operations

Moderate: Enhances efficiency in a competitive, data-driven industry


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