How to write an RFP (or capacity brief) for reserved B300

A procurement director inherited a sixteen-page RFP that asked for “latest-generation AI compute, commercially reasonable terms.” Legal had signed it. Engineering could not score a single reply. One vendor sent a region list. Another sent a twelve-month forecast template. A third invited them to a waitlist and promised to “circle back at allocation.” The rewrite took an afternoon: four headings — timeline, power, security, delivery — and a named HGX B300 SKU. That is the document this page teaches you to write. The mothership spec you are briefing against lives on Pacific reserved GPU capacity.

Start with the document type, then the SKU

If legal needs a formal RFP, keep the cover sheet. The body should still read like a capacity brief: one architecture, one window, one site, one acceptance event. Do not open with “AI compute” or “H100-class equivalent.” Write Supermicro HGX B300 (or your exact equivalent) and a node count you can defend in finance. If a vendor cannot respond to that without a queue, they are answering a different RFP than the one you sent.

Timeline: a window with a witness

Put dates a board can read. When does the run start. When must the fabric pass a measured check. When do you need a spare node. Label each date as a target or a commitment — vendors will hide in that gap if you do not. Ask what happens if the window slips, in writing. If the permanent hall is the risk, say so in this section and point your own team at bridge capacity for delayed data centers as the parallel path: a module on a prepared pad while the building stays on its own schedule. Do not paste illustrative delay math into the RFP as if it were a quote.

• Named operational window, not “as soon as inventory allows.”
• A witnessable acceptance date — factory, site, or integration — not a ship notice.
• A slip clause: what you receive if the date moves, besides an apology.

Power: site facts the vendor must map to

Vendors will happily describe a reference module. Your brief should describe the pad. Voltage that is actually energized. Megawatts that are actually available. Who owns the meter. Whether site water exists — most reserved-module offers assume it does not. Ask the respondent to map their cluster to your feed, not the other way around. If you do not have those numbers, you are not ready to issue the brief; you are ready for a site walk. Pacific’s public reference load and pad language sit on the reserved capacity page — use them as the mothership spec, not as a second datasheet copied into your PDF.

Security: a boundary someone can walk

This section is not a CMMC questionnaire and it is not a logo wall. Write who operates the rack after handoff, who holds identity and admin paths, and whether the cluster is single-tenant bare metal you can point at. If Controlled Unclassified Information is in scope, say that the evaluation is a physical boundary — and stop. Do not turn the RFP into an assessor’s binder. Ask for the evidence you will actually review: operations interface, data-transfer path, field-service access. If a response talks only about a shared region and a control plane, it failed this heading.

Delivery: truck, pad, and evidence

Ask how the machine arrives and what you can witness. Factory build versus site work. Whether the unit lands complete on one truck. What the crane and pad assumptions are. Which factory, site, and integration gates produce artifacts you can put in a deal room. Pacific describes a 24-stage program and named gates on the mothership — copy the questions, not the brochure. If delivery is “we will allocate in a region,” you did not buy reserved capacity; you bought a hope with a SKU name on it.

Bind the four sections so scoring is possible

Give each heading a must-answer question and a fail condition. Timeline fails if the only date is a waitlist. Power fails if the vendor will not map to your feed. Security fails if tenancy is “our standard cloud posture.” Delivery fails if evidence is a logo slide. Score those four. Do not score brand warmth. When the brief is tight enough to score, take it to a 30-minute call with Harper — that is the only booking URL we use.

When the brief is written

Open reserved GPU capacity on pacific.space. If the hall is the risk, open bridge capacity. Bring the four sections, the SKU, and the window. Do not look for a /booked path on this domain.