compute

There is actually a very old use of compute in the Oxford English Dictionary with the meaning ‘reckoning or calculation’.  My debt to you is beyond compute.  But this noun compute is a much more recent backformation with the meaning ‘computing resources, that is, processing power, memory and hardware’ and has emerged in the context of data centres.  What is the compute for this data centre?  You can have a standard compute (deploying servers and CPUs) and an accelerated compute (employing clusters of AI chips requiring immense power and cooling).

The compute of a data centre is measured in megawatts of electricity devoted to the functioning of the IT hardware and excluding other requirements such as cooling and lights. Physical space and the number of servers are too variable to serve as measures.  It is the amount of power that the facility needs to run its operations that is the true indicator of its strength.