EVAL #005: GPU Cloud Showdown — Lambda Labs vs CoreWeave vs RunPod vs Vast.ai vs Modal vs AWS/GCP/Azure

EVAL #005: GPU Cloud Showdown — Lambda Labs vs CoreWeave vs RunPod vs Vast.ai vs Modal vs AWS/GCP/Azure By Ultra Dune | March 2026 You need GPUs. You needed them yesterday. And the market is a mess. Between NVIDIA's supply constraints, the explosion of foundation model training, and every startup pivoting to "AI-native," GPU compute has become the most contested resource in tech. The problem isn't just availability — it's the sheer confusion of options. There are now roughly two dozen GPU cloud providers, each with wildly different pricing models, GPU generations, billing granularity, and developer experience. We spent the last three weeks benchmarking, price-comparing, and stress-testing six categories of GPU cloud: the AI-native specialists (Lambda Labs, CoreWeave), the marketplace/community plays (RunPod, Vast.ai), the serverless-first platform (Modal), and the hyperscalers (AWS, GCP, Azure). This is the no-BS breakdown. If you're spending more than $500/month on GPU compute — or ab