Amazon Reportedly in Talks to Shift $8bn of Nvidia Blackwell Chips Into Leaseback Vehicle

Amazon is exploring a deal that would move roughly $8 billion worth of advanced Nvidia chips off its balance sheet and into a newly created special-purpose vehicle, according to a Financial Times report cited by multiple outlets on October 2, 2026. Under the arrangement, Amazon would lease the chips back from the vehicle rather than carry them as owned equipment, a structure commonly described as a sale-leaseback.

What is being reported

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Amazon has held discussions with outside investors in recent weeks to gauge interest in financing a vehicle that would hold thousands of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips, according to a Yahoo Finance summary of the FT story. The chips are described as already in use in data centers across the U.S., and Amazon would retain usage rights after the transfer, continuing to run its AI workloads on the same hardware even though ownership would sit with the new entity, per the Yahoo Finance and GuruFocus accounts of the FT reporting.

On the proposed capital structure, Amazon is reported to be offering an equity stake of up to 10% in the vehicle to outside investors, with the remainder of the funding to be raised through debt issuance, according to the Yahoo Finance and GuruFocus accounts of the FT report. That would mean Amazon itself would not hold a stake in the entity once it is set up, per the Yahoo Finance summary. Neither Amazon nor Nvidia has been quoted confirming the plan in the sourcing reviewed here, and the reports stop short of detailing lease duration, residual-value assumptions, or exactly who would absorb depreciation risk on the chips over time. Those structural specifics are not addressed in the available reporting.

Stage of talks and stated rationale

The reporting characterizes the plan as under consideration rather than agreed. Amazon has been sounding out investor appetite, but no prospective investors have been named in the FT-based coverage reviewed, and that reporting does not specify a timeline for closing any such arrangement.

The stated rationale, according to the FT report as relayed by Yahoo Finance, is to strengthen Amazon's balance sheet by unloading expensive chip costs to investors and adopting a more asset-light approach amid rising AI-related spending. GuruFocus's summary frames this similarly, noting the move would let Amazon divest AI-focused assets while retaining usage rights. Digitimes described the same arrangement as moving about $8 billion of high-end Nvidia chips off Amazon's balance sheet through a sale-leaseback structure, and framed the step in its headline as support for the company's credit rating.

Yahoo Finance's account of the FT report places the discussions within a broader push by U.S. hyperscalers to find less balance-sheet-heavy ways to finance large data centre buildouts, where a bulk of the cost comes from the advanced chips used to train AI models. GuruFocus cites Amazon's market capitalisation at $2.68 trillion.

Bottom line

As reported, Amazon has been testing investor appetite for a vehicle that would own roughly $8 billion of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips it would continue to operate, with up to 10% offered as equity and the remainder raised through debt. Nothing in the sourcing reviewed indicates an agreed deal, named investors or a closing timeline, and neither Amazon nor Nvidia has been quoted confirming the plan. Outlets also differ on the detail: Seeking Alpha says the FT reported it on Friday, Yahoo Finance says Thursday, and GuruFocus characterises it as an Amazon announcement on October 2, 2026, while the other reports attribute it to the FT citing unnamed people. Interpretation, tied to those reported terms: if completed, such a structure would shift chip ownership and the associated depreciation off Amazon's own asset base while leaving its AI capacity in place, but the lease duration and residual-value treatment that would determine the economic effect are not disclosed in the available reporting.