7/22/25, 3:19 PM Build and maintenance cost | LLM Inference Handbook
Build and maintenance cost
Building self-hosted LLM inference infrastructure isn’t just a technical task; it’s a costly, time-
consuming commitment.
Complexity
LLM inference requires much more than standard cloud-native stacks can provide. Building
the right setup involves:
Provisioning high-performance GPUs (often scarce and regionally limited)
Managing CUDA version compatibility and driver dependencies
Configuring autoscaling, concurrency control, and scale-to-zero behavior
Setting up observability tools for GPU monitoring, request tracing, and failure detection
Handling model-specific behaviors like streaming, caching, and routing
None of these steps are trivial. Most teams try to force-fit these needs onto general-purpose
infrastructure, but it only results in reduced performance and longer lead time.
Even if a team pulls it off, every week spent setting up infrastructure is a week not spent
improving models or delivering product value. For high-performing AI teams, this opportunity
cost is just as real as the infrastructure bill.
Limited flexibility for ML tools and frameworks
Many AI stacks lock model runtimes, such as PyTorch, vLLM, or specific transformers, to
fixed versions. The primary reason is to cache container images and ensure compatibility
with infrastructure-related components. While this simplifies deployment in clusters, it also
restricts flexibility when you need to test or deploy newer models or frameworks that fall
outside the supported list.
But this rigidity creates real limitations:
You can’t easily test or deploy newer models or framework versions.
You inherit more tech debt as your stack diverges from community or vendor updates.
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7/22/25, 3:19 PM Build and maintenance cost | LLM Inference Handbook
LLM deployment speed slows down, putting your team at a competitive disadvantage.
Scaling LLMs should mean exploring faster, better models, without being stuck waiting for
infra to catch up.
Support for complex AI systems
An LLM alone doesn’t deliver value. It has to be part of an integrated system, often including:
Pre-processing to clean or transform user inputs
Post-processing to format model outputs for front-end use
Inference code that wraps the model in logic, pipelines, or control flow
Business logic to handle validation, rules, and internal data calls
Data fetchers to connect with databases or feature stores
Multi-model composition for retrieval-augmented generation or ensemble pipelines
Custom APIs to expose the service in the right shape for downstream teams
Here’s the catch: most LLM deployment tools aren’t built for this kind of extensibility. They’re
designed to load weights and expose a basic API. Anything more complex requires glue
code, workarounds, or splitting logic across multiple services.
That leads to:
More engineering effort just to deliver usable features
Poor developer experience for teams trying to consume these AI services
Blocked innovation when tools don’t support use-case-specific customization
The hidden cost: talent
LLM infrastructure requires deep specialization. Companies need engineers who understand
GPUs, Kubernetes, ML frameworks, and distributed systems — all in one role. These
professionals are rare and expensive, with salaries often 30–50% higher than traditional
DevOps engineers.
Even for teams that have the right people, hiring and training to maintain in-house capabilities
is a major investment. In this survey, over 60% of public sector IT professionals cited AI talent
shortages as the biggest barrier to adoption. It’s no different in the private sector.
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