AI chips are so expensive that companies now finance them like buildings or planes. Here's the basic structure, and the deal that put it in the headlines.
The basic idea
An SPV (special-purpose vehicle) is a separate legal company with one job: own a specific asset and borrow against it.
A typical GPU setup:
- A new SPV buys the GPUs (or buys them from the company already using them).
- The SPV pays for them mostly with debt from investors, plus a slice of equity.
- The company that needs the compute leases the chips back and pays rent.
- The rent covers the SPV's interest and repayments.
When the company sells its own chips into the SPV and rents them back, that's a sale-leaseback.
Amazon's reported deal
As reported by Reuters on Oct 2, 2026, citing the Financial Times and people familiar with the matter:
- Amazon held talks with investors in recent weeks about moving about $8B of NVIDIA Grace Blackwell chips into an SPV.
- Amazon would lease the chips back. The SPV would raise money from outside investors through debt.
- Amazon would offer an equity stake of up to 10% in the vehicle.
- The chips are installed in more than a dozen U.S. data centers across five states, including Nevada and Virginia.
Amazon hadn't announced anything, and Reuters said Amazon and NVIDIA didn't immediately respond. Treat it as a reported plan, not a done deal. For scale, Amazon told investors on Jul 30, 2026 it expects about $220B of 2026 capex (Big Tech earnings week).
Who else does this
- Neoclouds. CoreWeave splits its debt into recourse and non-recourse debt (the latter is tied to specific assets) on its Q2 2026 balance sheet. Background: neoclouds explained.
- Data center buildings. Meta's Hyperion joint venture raised $27B of debt against about $30B of assets, per Van Nieuwerburgh's paper. See who's paying for the $10 trillion build-out.
- Chipmakers as backstops. NVIDIA disclosed guarantees capped at $105B tied to a campus leased to OpenAI, in its Q2 FY27 CFO commentary (Aug 26, 2026).
The risks in plain words
- Depreciation. GPUs age fast. If a new generation ships (NVIDIA's Vera Rubin is next: DSX pods explained), older chips are worth less than the debt assumed.
- Hidden leverage. Debt in an SPV doesn't look like the company's own debt, even when the company is the only tenant.
- Guarantees. If the company promised to cover shortfalls, the risk is still theirs. Read the footnotes.
- Rental prices. If GPU rental rates fall (track them in our GPU cloud price tracker), the collateral is worth less.
