Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is seeking external investors for a financing arrangement involving approximately $8 billion of advanced Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) chips, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, Amazon has held discussions with investors in recent weeks to assess interest in a proposed structure that would place thousands of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special purpose vehicle.
Amazon would then lease the artificial intelligence chips back from the vehicle for use in data centres across the United States. The special purpose vehicle would seek financing from external investors through debt issuance, according to the Financial Times.
Amazon Looks at Alternative Data Centre Financing
The proposed structure is intended to move some of the financing associated with the chips outside Amazon’s balance sheet, the report said.
The arrangement comes as large U.S. cloud and technology companies explore alternative methods of financing data centre infrastructure, where advanced processors used for artificial intelligence workloads account for a significant portion of investment requirements.
Amazon also plans to offer external investors an equity interest of up to 10% in the special purpose vehicle and would not retain an equity stake itself, according to the Financial Times.
The supplied information does not indicate that Amazon has reached a final agreement with investors or that the proposed transaction has been completed.
Amazon expects capital expenditure to exceed $200 billion this year, with a substantial portion allocated to its Amazon Web Services cloud business for additional chips and data centre construction.