Amazon has spent a fortune on some of the most sought-after hardware on the planet. A meaningful chunk of it is now sitting in storage.
According to a report from ZeroHedge, Amazon is holding billions worth of Nvidia hardware in warehouses because its data centers lack the power to turn it on. The company has the servers but not the electricity to run them.
Racks arriving faster than the grid can keep up
The backlog stems from a deliberate strategy. Amazon has been speeding up deliveries of Nvidia GPU server racks, especially the GB300 series, under an approach described as “Early Rack Receipt.”
Internal documents dated August 2026 show Amazon was set to take delivery of approximately $5 billion worth of GB300 racks that month. The documents point to an expected $3 billion in deliveries every month after that.
Some of these racks are being staged in facilities with plenty of floor space but not enough power supply to activate them.
A $220 billion bet with a cash flow cost
The racks are part of a much larger spending push. Amazon’s capital expenditures for 2026 are projected at roughly $220 billion, nearly double 2025 levels.
Most of that money is aimed at AWS and AI infrastructure. It is also expected to push the company into negative free cash flow. Amazon is dealing with supply chain strain and staffing challenges at the same time.
In early October 2026, reports surfaced that Amazon was exploring an off-balance-sheet deal worth around $8 billion. The proposal would move Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle, potentially giving Amazon more financial flexibility as costs climb. The deal is still being explored, not finalized.
Amazon is also passing some costs on to customers. Starting in early October, the company raised prices by approximately 15% for certain high-performance EC2 GPU capacity blocks.
Power is the new bottleneck
The broader backdrop is an industry where demand for data center capacity is expected to exceed available supply in both 2026 and 2027.
Amazon is developing 44 GW of new data center capacity across 16 states. Meanwhile, AWS is sitting on a contract backlog worth $496 billion.
What this means for Amazon and the AI build-out
The potential $8 billion special-purpose vehicle deal is worth watching closely. Off-balance-sheet structures can be perfectly legitimate tools for managing capital. They also tend to draw scrutiny from investors who want a clear picture of a company’s true obligations, especially during a heavy spending cycle.
The key things to watch are whether the Early Rack Receipt pace of roughly $3 billion per month continues, whether the special-purpose vehicle deal moves forward, and how quickly Amazon can bring its 44 GW pipeline online.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.