How to score a reserved-GPU delivery date

A capacity lead printed three vendor replies on the same afternoon. Every cover sheet said “Q4 delivery.” The first defined a two-week operational window and a factory witness. The second said “target allocation pending regional availability.” The third put a date in the PDF header and a waitlist ID in the footer. They awarded the third because the date looked the most specific. The cluster never showed. The post-mortem was not “the market is tight.” It was “we scored a printed month as if it were a commitment.” This page is the scoring sheet. The mothership spec you are scoring against lives on Pacific reserved GPU capacity.

A date is a claim until you can bucket it

Do not drop a vendor date onto a program calendar until you can put the reply in one of three buckets: firm window, target, or waitlist language. If you cannot, the reply failed scoring — not because the month is wrong, but because you cannot tell what the month means. Reserved capacity on the mothership capacity page is a named architecture against a calendar. Your score should ask whether this vendor is offering that, or offering a hope with a date printed on it.

Firm window versus waitlist language

Waitlist language hides in polite sentences. “As soon as inventory allows.” “Priority allocation.” “We will circle back at allocation.” A Discord invite or a waitlist ID in the footer is not a window. A region list with a forecast template is not a window. “Commercially reasonable efforts” plus a printed quarter is still a waitlist. A firm window names a start, an end, a SKU, and a site or pad a board can read. If the vendor will not say which of those they are giving you, mark the date as waitlist language even when a month is in bold.

• Firm window: named operational start and end, named SKU, named site or pad.
• Target: a month they hope to hit, labeled as a target, with no hold on inventory.
• Waitlist language: allocation, queue, region, or “we will confirm at award” — even if a date is printed.

Score the acceptance event, not the ship notice

A ship notice is a logistics email. Reserved capacity is a handoff someone can witness. Ask which gate produces the artifact you will put in the deal room: factory, site, or integration. Who is in the room. What fails the gate. Pacific describes a staged factory, site, and integration program on the mothership — copy the questions, not the brochure. If the only evidence is “we shipped,” you scored a truck, not a cluster. If the permanent hall is the thing that might miss, keep bridge capacity for delayed data centers on the scoring sheet as a parallel path, not as a consolation prize you invent after the slip.

The slip clause is the score

Every reserved-GPU date will move for someone. The score is what you receive when it does. Ask, in writing: do they still hold inventory against this award, or does the slot return to a queue? Can you exit? Can the reserved cluster land on a prepared pad while the building stays on its own schedule? That last question is why bridge capacity exists on the mothership. Do not paste illustrative delay math into the scorecard as if it were a quote. Do not invent a competitor’s lead time to make the clause look sharp. If the only remedy is an apology and a new target, the date was never reserved.

Mark pass or fail so finance can read it

Give each heading a fail condition. Window fails if the only date is waitlist language. Acceptance fails if evidence is a ship notice. Slip fails if the remedy is a new forecast. Score those three. Do not score brand warmth, logo slides, or “we are close to allocation.” Vendor-versus-vendor writeups stay on pacific.space/comparisons — do not rebuild them here, and do not use a comparison page as a substitute for a scored date. When the sheet is tight enough to defend in finance, take it to a 30-minute call with Harper — that is the only booking URL we use.

When the date has a score

Open reserved GPU capacity on pacific.space. If the hall is the risk, open bridge capacity. Bring the three buckets, the acceptance gate, and the slip clause. Do not look for a /booked path on this domain.