Self-hosted 8xH100 is ~$250k, depreciated across three years => $80k/year, with power and cooling => $90k/year (~$10/hour total).
AWS charges $55/hour for EC2 p5.48xlarge instance, which goes down with 1 or 3 year commitments.
With 1 year commitment, it costs ~$30/hour => $262k per year.
3-year commitment brings price down to $24/hour => $210k per year.
This price does NOT include egress, and other fees.
So, yeah, there is a $120k-$175k difference that can pay for a full-time on-site SRE, even if you only need one 8xH100 server.
Numbers get better if you need more than one server like that.
AWS charges $55/hour for EC2 p5.48xlarge instance, which goes down with 1 or 3 year commitments.
With 1 year commitment, it costs ~$30/hour => $262k per year.
3-year commitment brings price down to $24/hour => $210k per year.
This price does NOT include egress, and other fees.
So, yeah, there is a $120k-$175k difference that can pay for a full-time on-site SRE, even if you only need one 8xH100 server.
Numbers get better if you need more than one server like that.