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COMPEL Glossary / compute-budget-vdt

Compute budget (VDT)

A pre-agreed ceiling on training or inference compute per AI feature per period — expressed in tokens, FLOPs, or dollars.

What this means in practice

Aligns with ISO/IEC 42001 Clause 8.1 operational-control obligations; the compute budget is the governance instrument that prevents runaway cost from agentic or long-context workloads.

Synonyms

AI compute budget , governed compute ceiling

Related Terms Network

This diagram shows how Compute budget (VDT) connects to other concepts in the COMPEL body of knowledge. Each linked node is a term you can explore in turn.

Related terms for Compute budget (VDT) Network graph showing 3 related glossary terms connected to Compute budget (VDT). Compute budget… FinOps for… Unit econo… Circuit Br…
3 related concepts connected to Compute budget (VDT).

The COMPEL Glossary Graph visualizes relationships between framework terminology, showing how concepts interconnect across domains, stages, and pillars. Term nodes cluster by pillar affiliation while cross-references reveal semantic dependencies — for example, how risk appetite connects to control effectiveness, model governance, and assurance requirements. This network representation helps practitioners navigate the framework vocabulary and understand that COMPEL terminology forms a coherent conceptual system rather than isolated definitions.

Accessible list of related terms
  • FinOps for AI — The FinOps Foundation's Inform-Optimize-Operate lifecycle applied to AI workloads — visibility into AI spend, optimisation of token and compute costs, and operational discipline.
  • Unit economics — Cost and revenue per atomic unit — per transaction, per successful decision, per hour saved — for an AI feature.
  • Circuit Breaker — A circuit breaker is a resilience design pattern that automatically stops an AI system from sending requests to a failing downstream service or component when it detects a pattern of errors, preventing cascading failures and giving the failing component time to recover.

See also

  • FinOps for AI — The FinOps Foundation's Inform-Optimize-Operate lifecycle applied to AI workloads — visibility into AI spend, optimisation of token and compute costs, and operational discipline.
  • Unit economics — Cost and revenue per atomic unit — per transaction, per successful decision, per hour saved — for an AI feature.
  • Circuit Breaker — A circuit breaker is a resilience design pattern that automatically stops an AI system from sending requests to a failing downstream service or component when it detects a pattern of errors, preventing cascading failures and giving the failing component time to recover.