A contract that binds a customer to pay for agreed volumes over its term, whether or not it takes them. Chapter 5.
From The AI Compute Race. Read the book
Defined in Chapter 5 — The Island in Every Machine.
Where the book uses it
- Chapter 5 — The Island in Every Machine
Why every accelerator runs through Taiwan: the foundry, the packaging and the memory that are booked years ahead, and what that does to anyone arriving late with cash.
Related terms
From the glossary of The AI Compute Race.
How to cite this page
Dryburgh, Lee S. “Take-or-pay.” In The AI Compute Race. DRYBURGH. https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/take-or-pay (accessed 2026-11-01).
BibTeX
@misc{dryburgh-take-or-pay-2026,
author = {Dryburgh, Lee S.},
title = {{Take-or-pay}},
howpublished = {In \emph{The AI Compute Race}, DRYBURGH},
year = {2026},
url = {https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary/take-or-pay},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-01}
}