The cost of an NVIDIA H100 GPU can range from around $25,000 per GPU for a direct purchase to over $400,000 for a full system. However, alternatives like GPU-on-demand platforms offer flexible access to high-performance GPUs without significant upfront investment, with prices varying between $2.99 and $9.984 per hour depending on the platform. The total cost of using H100 GPUs also depends on factors such as cold start time, model loading time, inference speed, and input/output operations, which can vary significantly depending on the platform used. These serverless GPU platforms provide a more accessible alternative to direct purchase, allowing users to leverage the power of H100s without the hefty upfront investment, making them an attractive option for organizations looking to build AI applications with ease.