Amazon wants investors to own $8 billion of its Nvidia chips — and rent them back

Amazon is seeking to move roughly $8 billion of Nvidia’s advanced Grace Blackwell chips off its balance sheet, the Financial Times reported on October 2, according to Reuters’ summary of the report.

How would the deal work?

• Thousands of chips Amazon is installing in more than a dozen U.S. data centres across five states, including Nevada and Virginia, would be moved into a special-purpose vehicle (SPV).
• The SPV would raise money from outside investors through debt; Amazon would offer an equity stake of up to 10%.
• Amazon would then lease the chips back and keep using them.

If the vehicle earns an investment-grade credit rating, long-term investors such as insurers and pension funds could join, Techzine notes. The talks are at an early stage, and Amazon and Nvidia did not immediately comment to Reuters.

Why it matters

AI infrastructure is now so expensive that even the largest cloud providers are looking for ways to spread the cost. Sale-and-leaseback is an old tool — airlines and retailers use it for planes and property — but applying it to GPUs is newer, and it tells you two things:

1. GPUs are being treated as financeable assets, with predictable lease income attached.
2. The bet is on long useful lives. Chips depreciate fast as new generations arrive. Investors will want lease terms that match how long Grace Blackwell stays competitive — which is exactly the number nobody knows yet.

What to watch

If the deal closes, expect copycats from other hyperscalers and neoclouds, and a growing market where GPU capacity is packaged, rated and sold like any other infrastructure asset. For builders, that could mean more capacity coming online faster — and more of it owned by people who care about utilisation above all else.

Related: Nebius buys Inferize to keep expensive GPUs busy instead of idle.