This topic examines decentralized GPU and AI compute marketplaces and how they compare to more centralized AI clouds. It covers marketplaces that match demand for GPU cycles with distributed supply—Argentum AI and Vast.ai—alongside specialist providers such as Genesis Cloud and Lambda Labs, and complementary open systems like Tensorplex Labs, Together AI and Rebellions.ai. As of 2026-01-25, continued GPU demand, geographic supply diversification and pressure to reduce cost and carbon intensity make market-based procurement and novel hardware approaches commercially relevant. Decentralized marketplaces aim to increase supply elasticity and price transparency by aggregating spare capacity and, in some projects, introducing tokenized or DeFi primitives to coordinate stakes and payments (Tensorplex Labs exemplifies open-source, blockchain-linked infrastructure). Vast.ai is known for cost-optimized, spot-market style GPU rentals; Argentum AI focuses on decentralized node aggregation and token-enabled compute exchange. Genesis Cloud and Lambda Labs offer more centralized, turnkey GPU instances and developer tooling for training and fine-tuning, while Together AI provides a full-stack acceleration cloud and serverless inference products. Rebellions.ai highlights a hardware trend toward energy-efficient inference accelerators and GPU-class stacks that reduce operating cost and power demand. Key trade-offs include price vs. predictability, performance isolation and SLA guarantees, data locality and security, and integration friction with MLOps pipelines. Emerging themes are hybrid procurement (mixing spot markets and reserved instances), hardware heterogeneity (chiplets and SoCs), and increased emphasis on energy efficiency and interoperability. This comparison assists teams choosing between decentralized marketplaces, specialist clouds, and open infrastructure depending on cost sensitivity, operational risk tolerance, and latency/privacy requirements.