---
title: "Rationed utility: what it means · The AI Compute Race · DRYBURGH"
source: https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/rationed-utility
description: "Rationed utility: The future in which the machine works, the hours are scarce, and scarcity, not abundance, keeps the accelerator-hour worth paying for."
---

# Rationed utility

What does “Rationed utility” mean?

Rationed utilityThe future in which the machine works, the hours are scarce, and scarcity, not abundance, keeps the accelerator-hour worth paying for. *Chapter 14.*

From *The AI Compute Race*. [Read the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#buy)

The book uses this term in a sense of its own.

Defined in [Chapter 14 — The Convergence](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14).

## Where the book uses it

- [Chapter 14 — The Convergence](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14)One campus, Meta’s Hyperion, run through four possible futures to show how science, power, money and permission meet in the price of an accelerator-hour.

## Where the record uses it

- Scorecard indicator [Post-2024 METR horizon doubling time](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard#row-3)
- Scorecard indicator [Autonomous research outer loop](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard#row-5)
- Scorecard indicator [CoWoS](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard#row-17)
- Scorecard indicator [CoreWeave 2026 borrowing spread ladder](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard#row-26)

## Also discussed in

- Page [The Compute Economy](https://dryburgh.com/)

## Related terms

- [Accelerator-hour](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/accelerator-hour)
- [Break-point](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/break-point)
- [Bridge power](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/bridge-power)
- [Four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/four-futures)
- [Refresh life](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/refresh-life)
- [B200](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/b200)
- [Break fee](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/break-fee)
- [Capital recovery](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/capital-recovery)
- [Clearing house](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/clearing-house)
- [Commodity infrastructure](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/commodity-infrastructure)
- [Compute futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/compute-futures)
- [Deemed export](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/deemed-export)

From the glossary of The AI Compute Race.

- [Campuses](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger)
- [Tests](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests)
- [Scorecard](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard)
- [Data](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/releases)
- [Chapter by chapter](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/companion)
- [The record at a glance](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/observatory)
- [The machine](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/machine)
- [One campus, four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/hyperion)
- [Glossary](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary)
- [People](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people)
- [Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources)
- [Notes](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes)
- [Where the book was wrong](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/corrections)
- [Where its sources were wrong](https://dryburgh.com/corrections?book=vol1)
- [The Paper](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/paper)
- [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/consent)
- [Who builds and pays](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties)

*The AI Compute Race: Five Races, One Machine* is a book by Lee S. Dryburgh, the first volume of THE COMPUTE ECONOMY, published by Dryburgh, an imprint of Contestra OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; its record closes on 8 November 2026.

[About the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1)[Tell me when it is out](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#notify)