Amazon is in talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia AI chips off its balance sheet into a special-purpose vehicle backed by outside investors, the Financial Times reported on October 2. The company would then lease the chips back for its data centres.

The plan covers thousands of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips already deployed across more than a dozen US data centres in five states, including Nevada and Virginia. The vehicle would be funded mainly through debt, with Amazon possibly offering investors up to a 10 per cent equity stake.

For Amazon, the appeal is straightforward: AI hardware has become enormously expensive, and shifting ownership to outside investors could let it keep building compute capacity without carrying the full cost directly. Amazon alone projects over $200 billion in capital spending this year.

The talks are exploratory and terms may change, the report said. Amazon and Nvidia did not immediately comment. The structure reflects a broader push among hyperscalers to fund AI infrastructure with off-balance-sheet vehicles.

The deal shows how far the AI boom is pushing Big Tech into Wall Street-style financial engineering, as chip costs reshape corporate balance sheets.