Amazon in talks to offload ~$8B of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into investor-backed SPV, lease them back (FT)
What happened
The Financial Times reported Friday, Oct. 2 that Amazon has held talks with investors in recent weeks about moving roughly $8 billion of advanced Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips it is installing in U.S. data centers into a special-purpose vehicle, then leasing the chips back. Under the proposed structure, the SPV would raise financing from outside investors, mainly through debt issuance, and Amazon would offer investors an equity stake of up to 10%. The chips involved have already been bought or leased by Amazon and are installed across more than a dozen data centers in five U.S. states, including Nevada and Virginia. The stated aim is a more asset-light balance sheet as Amazon's AI infrastructure spending soars. Amazon and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- AMZN (Amazon): cleaner balance-sheet optics and capital efficiency, but a signal that AI capex is straining even its cash flows. NVDA (Nvidia): demand validation — a top customer is financing more purchases — but also a hint that the AI buildout is increasingly funded through financial engineering, which credit analysts will read closely. Other hyperscalers (MSFT, GOOGL, META, ORCL) as likely copycats
- AI-infrastructure credit and asset-backed debt markets.