What is Tokens per Megawatt?
Tokens per Megawatt is the quantity of useful AI inference or training output produced per megawatt of facility power consumed, measured at the workload rather than at the meter. Two facilities with an identical power usage effectiveness can differ by double-digit percentages on this measure, because thermal control determines how often silicon throttles and how much of its rated performance it actually delivers.
Definition
Tokens per Megawatt is the quantity of useful AI inference or training output produced per megawatt of facility power consumed, measured at the workload rather than at the meter.
Why it matters
Power usage effectiveness measures how much of a facility's electricity reaches its IT equipment. It says nothing about how much useful AI output that equipment produced. Two facilities with an identical PUE can differ by double-digit percentages in tokens generated per megawatt consumed, because thermal control determines how often silicon throttles, how close to its limit it can safely run, and how much of its rated performance it actually delivers.
Why it is the correct purchasing metric
In a facility of any meaningful scale, the revenue released by better thermal control is roughly an order of magnitude larger than the electricity cost it saves. Coral models this at approximately ten times, at a blended industrial tariff. A buyer optimising for PUE is having a facilities conversation. A buyer optimising for Tokens per Megawatt is having a budget conversation.
Coral's position
Coral sells Tokens per Megawatt and reports PUE. The first is what the customer is buying. The second is an input to it.
Take the vocabulary into a real site conversation.
An architecture review applies these terms to a specific building: its power envelope, its thermal capacity, its density target and its jurisdiction.