---
title: "Amazon in talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia chips to investors and rent them back"
url: "https://etf.net/news/amazon-in-talks-to-move-about-8-billion-of-nvidia-chips-to-investors-and-rent-them-back-2026-10-02"
published_at: "2026-10-02T06:12:45.880Z"
updated_at: "2026-10-02T06:12:45.880Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# Amazon in talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia chips to investors and rent them back

The Financial Times reported early Friday, October 2, 2026, that Amazon has held talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia chips into a new vehicle and lease them back.

By ETF.net Research. Published Oct 2, 2026.

Amazon has held talks to move about **$8 billion** of advanced Nvidia chips to outside investors and rent the chips back, the Financial Times reported early Friday.

Reuters, in its account of that report, said the aim was to strengthen Amazon's balance sheet, the tally of what it owns and what it owes. Selling the chips and renting them back may not lighten it.

Under the usual lease rules, keeping control means the cash comes in as a loan and the chips stay on the balance sheet. If Amazon gives the chips up and rents them back, the promised rent generally still counts as money owed, on top of the $94 billion Amazon already owed on long-term leases at the end of June.

Amazon's own measure of free cash flow, the cash left after spending on equipment, was an outflow of **$7.6 billion** over the twelve months through June 30, against an inflow of $18.2 billion a year earlier. Amazon said the drop was driven mainly by higher spending on equipment, and that the extra spending was mainly for artificial intelligence.

Long-term debt was $129 billion at the end of June, up from $66 billion at the end of 2025, and in July Amazon set a $220 billion forecast for capital spending this year. The chips in the talks are already installed in its data centers, and the report does not suggest the talks would change that forecast.

Under the proposal, thousands of Grace Blackwell chips, Nvidia processors used for artificial intelligence, would move into a new vehicle, a company set up only to hold them. The chips are installed in more than a dozen US data centers across five states, including Nevada and Virginia. The vehicle would borrow from outside investors, and Amazon would offer those investors an ownership share of up to 10% in it.

Nothing is signed, no buyer is named, and neither Amazon nor Nvidia has confirmed the talks the Financial Times described, citing people familiar with the matter. The rent, the length of any lease, and who would control the vehicle are still open, so it is not clear whether the chips would leave the balance sheet.

On January 7, Apollo said its funds had led a $3.5 billion financing so a fund run by Valor Equity Partners could buy $5.4 billion of Nvidia chips and lease them to a subsidiary of xAI. That is the reverse of this proposal: Valor would buy the chips and lease them out, while Amazon would sell chips already in its data centers and rent them back. The report also describes no capped payment like the one Meta promised in October 2025, based on the value of a data center if Meta ended the lease or did not renew it.

Nvidia said in August it had signed memorandums of understanding, agreements to work together, with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR on financing platforms meant to bring in over $500 billion of outside capital for AI computing.

A sale would swap the chips for cash and a rent bill Amazon would still owe. If the transfer does not count as a sale, the chips stay on the balance sheet and the cash counts as a loan.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/amazon-in-talks-to-move-about-8-billion-of-nvidia-chips-to-investors-and-rent-them-back-2026-10-02. Please cite the page URL.