Amazon seeks to offload $8bn of Nvidia chips to investors

Amazon is discussing a special-purpose vehicle to sell about $8bn of advanced Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips to outside investors and lease them back, aiming to strengthen its balance sheet and become more asset-light; talks in recent weeks remain ongoing and may change, and Amazon declined to comment. The SPV would issue debt to investors; investors expect an investment-grade rating based on Amazon's double-A rating, potentially attracting insurers and pension funds. Amazon plans to offer up to a 10% equity stake in the vehicle while retaining no ownership stake. The chips comprise thousands deployed across more than a dozen US data centres in five states, including Nevada and Virginia — Amazon bought or leased them. Grace Blackwell is among Nvidia's most advanced silicon but is due to be superseded by Vera Rubin; Amazon says each semiconductor generation should last at least five years and older chips still run applications. Context: OpenAI and Anthropic use the latest chips for training; Amazon has committed to invest as much as $83bn in Anthropic and OpenAI-related AI efforts. Amazon expects $220bn of capex this year, mostly AWS chips and AI data centres; it planned roughly $50bn of bond issuance after strong demand, but July'US$18.3B sale faced weak demand for long-dated debt and required higher yields. Broader pattern the piece flags: tech groups use residual-value guarantees and other structures to shift debt off balance sheets — a practice that can obscure retained risks; GPU-backed financing is also used by CoreWeave, and Nvidia offered in August to backstop up to $125bn within US$323.5B financing platform.