John Gowing Brief · On-prem frontier LLM
V / VII · Three-year TCO

Three-year TCO · midpoint

$1.59M on-prem.
$400–700k sovereign in the cloud.

The recommended 8× H200 stack lands at $1,590k over three years (range $1,270k–$2,050k). An Australian-region cloud-sovereign deployment — Claude Opus 4.7 on AWS Bedrock-Sydney or GPT-5.5 on Azure Australia East under negotiated DPAs — lands at $400–700k and closes the capability gap.

Same axis · same currency · same three-year window

On-prem · 8× H200

capex hardware, opex run, compliance wrap

Hardware$620k
Rack / install$70k
Power · 3 yrs$50k
Setup$80k
Platform eng · 0.5 FTE$540k
IRAP + E8 + ISO$180k
Surveillance$60k
Midpoint $1,590k range $1,270 – $2,050

Cloud-sovereign · AU region

Claude on Bedrock-Sydney or GPT-5.5 on Azure AU East, under negotiated DPAs

low $400k · mid $550k · high $700k
≈ 30–50% of on-prem ≈ $550k range $400 – $700
Path
$0 $500k $1.0M $1.5M $2.0M
Three-year total
On-prem · 8× H200 capex hardware, opex run, compliance wrap
$0$500k$1.0M$1.5M$2.0M
Midpoint $1,590k range $1,270 – $2,050
Cloud-sovereign · AU region Claude on Bedrock-Sydney or GPT-5.5 on Azure AU East, under negotiated DPAs
low $400k mid $550k high $700k
$0$500k$1.0M$1.5M$2.0M
≈ 30–50% of on-prem ≈ $550k range $400 – $700
And cloud-sovereign closes the capability gap on §II, because the same DPA buys access to GPT-5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, or Gemini 3.1 Pro at the frontier rather than three to six months behind it.
·Hardware
8-GPU H200 SXM HGX node, fully integrated, 3-yr enterprise support — the largest single line
$620k
·Platform engineering · 3 yrs
0.5 FTE platform engineer or equivalent MSP — vLLM tune, observability, IaC, on-call
$540k
·Compliance · one-off
E8 ML2 uplift + ISO 27001 certification + IRAP at PROTECTED — six- to nine-month programme
$180k
·Setup · one-off
model deploy, vLLM / TRT-LLM tune, observability, infrastructure-as-code
$80k
·Install + rack + UPS + switching
42U rack, 16 kVA UPS, in-row cooling, 400 GbE ToR switch, NVLink cabling, freight, commissioning
$70k
·Surveillance · 3 yrs
ISO surveillance audits + IRAP biennial re-assessment + Statement of Applicability maintenance
$60k
·Power · 3 yrs
≈ 10 kW at 80% duty × 24/7 at NSW commercial blended ~25 c/kWh
$50k
·Cloud-sovereign alternative
AWS Sydney / Azure AU East under DPA; capability at the frontier, ops and compliance burden largely absorbed
$400 – 700k

SourceOn-prem frontier LLM briefing, §3.1 Stack A and §4 Dominant alternatives. Hardware quotes from Australian distributors (Hyperscalers AU, Broadberry AU, XENON) or reseller-indication estimates marked as such — NVIDIA does not publish HGX list prices. Cloud-sovereign range from the briefing's §4 paragraph and reflects typical 30–50% of on-prem TCO for this workload profile. AUD throughout; $ prefix on all figures. USD/AUD planning rate 1.50, RBA spot ≈ 1.38.

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