Amazon has agreed to buy billions of dollars of Nvidia GPUs before its data centers have enough power to run them, according to internal August emails obtained by Business Insider. Under a new Early Rack Receipt program, the company is taking delivery of about $5 billion in Nvidia GB300 server racks at U.S. facilities, with plans to accept another $3 billion each month. Because several AWS sites lack the utility capacity to energize servers, some hardware sits idle in warehouses as dark GPUs, tying up capital before it generates cloud revenue. The move comes as Amazon projects roughly $220 billion in capex this year and posted negative free cash flow last quarter for the first time since 2023. An Amazon spokesperson called the staging a best business practice for rapid installation once power arrives and disputed reports that the company lacked a clear path to bring the sites online.
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NVDAdata centerselectricityAI investmentAmazon
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Related tickers and likely impact
NVDA
▲ Likely positiveNvidia
Relevance: medium
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Information Technology |
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Market cap | $5.2T |
| Close on 10/19/2026 | 217.09 |
| Change that session | +1.38% |
AMZN
• NeutralAmazon
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Consumer Discretionary |
| Industry | Broadline Retail |
| Market cap | $2.7T |
| Close on 10/19/2026 | 262.45 |
| Change that session | +4.98% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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