Thousands of Grace Blackwell chips already installed in AWS data centers would go into a debt-financed ad hoc vehicle and then be leased to Amazon.
Amazon has been sounding out investors for several weeks about an unprecedented arrangement: to sell about $8 billion worth of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips to a special purpose company, then lease them back. The processors concerned are not pending stocks: they are already running in more than a dozen American data centers spread over five states, including Nevada and Virginia. Neither Amazon nor Nvidia have commented on this information, revealed by the Financial Times.
The logic of "sale-leaseback" applied to GPUs
The structure would be financed mainly by issuing debt, with external investors being able to take up to 10% of the capital. They would receive rents backed by Amazon's financial strength, while the group would immediately recover cash and remove from its balance sheet assets that depreciate quickly. The process is classic in aviation or commercial real estate, but new for AI accelerators.
The context is one of colossal capital expenditures, estimated at around $220 billion this year for Amazon. The bet is also based on the lifespan of the chips: the Grace Blackwell generation is to be replaced by Vera Rubin at Nvidia, while Amazon defends the idea that a generation of semiconductors remains usable for at least five years.
Read the full article on the original source
Go to the source →