Compute-Anchored Unit

A consumption unit denominated in an external, measurable resource — compute time, hardware capacity, or a hardware-derived composite. The defining property is the anchor: the unit reconciles to something that exists outside the vendor's pricing page. It behaves like a utility unit (a kWh): the vendor publishes conversion tables (per instance type, per workload class, per model), the buyer can meter their own consumption against the same referent, and an invoice line item can be audited back to resources actually consumed. Rate changes still happen, but they present as cost-curve management — the re-rating tracks visible hardware economics rather than vendor discretion.