Amazon is in talks to transfer about $8B of advanced Nvidia chips to outside investors through a new special-purpose vehicle, according to the Financial Times.
The company has held discussions with investors in recent weeks about moving thousands of Grace Blackwell chips it is installing in US data centers into the vehicle.
Amazon would then lease the hardware back from the SPV, which would raise debt against the chips.
The chips were bought or leased by Amazon and sit in more than a dozen US data centers across five states, including Nevada and Virginia.
Amazon plans to offer investors an equity stake of up to 10% in the vehicle. Terms could still change, and the talks are ongoing.
The balance sheet equation
Amazon would still have access to the chips while shifting their ownership to outside investors, reducing how much costly hardware it carries on its own balance sheet.
The pressure is arithmetic. Amazon expects capital expenditures of roughly $220B this year, most of it running through AWS for advanced chips and AI data center construction.
It also raised planned bond issuance to about $50B in March, from $37B. Tech giants are hunting for creative ways to finance data center build-outs, where much of the cost is tied to the chips used to train advanced models.
Custom silicon is the longer-term hedge
Amazon announced a multi-year agreement worth more than $1B with Synopsys on Wednesday, becoming lead customer for the EDA firm's new application-optimized silicon IP business.
The partnership gives Amazon broader access to Synopsys tools for developing and validating more advanced chip designs.
It builds on more than 15 years of collaboration between the two companies, alongside Amazon's Nitro line for cloud security, network, and storage.
Amazon has positioned its custom silicon as one route to lowering the cost of running AI workloads.
"Purpose-built chips deliver better performance at lower cost."
Peter DeSantis, Amazon
Chief executive Andy Jassy said earlier this year that nearly all AI had historically run on Nvidia hardware, but that "a new shift has started".
