Even Amazon is finding new ways to pay for the AI buildout.
In its quarterly filing released Thursday, Amazon disclosed supplier financing arrangements that let it borrow up to $80 billion against hardware purchases, Investing.com reports. The secured facility can be tapped from the beginning of 2027 through the third quarter of 2028. Lenders get collateral rights over certain assets bought through the facility, though the filing did not say which assets.
A change in approach
Until now, Amazon has mostly funded data center construction and chip purchases with cash from its cloud and retail businesses, plus its largest corporate bond sales to date. Unlike some rivals, it had not used creative structures such as joint financing with investment groups or leasing chips bought by other entities.
AWS CEO Matt Garman explained the thinking in a Bloomberg Television interview on Friday. “When we see such a really large opportunity in front of us, we’re looking for ways to also responsibly fund that so that we can go as big as possible for our customers,” he said.
The numbers behind it
The timing makes sense. Amazon reported a larger-than-expected jump in third-quarter capital spending, and its free cash flow was an outflow of $42.4 billion for the 12 months ended September 30.
Its total spending commitments, including debt and interest, leases not yet started and obligations to buy property and equipment, reached $883 billion at the end of September. That is up 36% from three months earlier and more than double the level a year ago. Amazon shares were down about 2% at midday Friday.
Why it matters
The AI infrastructure race has moved from a cash story to a financing story. When the largest cloud provider borrows against its own servers, it signals that demand for compute is expected to stay high for years.
For vendors in the AWS ecosystem, that is a sign of continued spending on capacity, migration and AI services. It is also a reminder that buyers everywhere will be asked to justify AI costs, so sales messaging built around measurable ROI and cost control will keep landing.
Sources: Investing.com, The Information. Written by the xRapid Media LLP team.
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