What Amazon set up
Amazon disclosed a secured supplier-financing facility that enables access to as much as $80 billion, secured by the hardware it purchases. The company said in a quarterly filing, posted after its earnings report on Thursday, that it may draw the facility at its sole discretion starting at the beginning of 2027 and extending to the end of the third quarter of 2028. Under the arrangement, lenders receive collateral rights over certain assets linked to the facility. The filing did not specify which assets, and a spokesperson declined to comment.
Why now
Amazon has been funding data center builds and chip purchases with operating cash from its cloud and retail arms, plus its largest corporate bond offerings to date. It had mostly stayed away from the more elaborate financing some rivals use, like co-investment for data center construction or structures where third parties buy chips and lease them to operators. Many of those deals revolve around Nvidia chips that run most AI workloads and are often the single biggest line item in new data center projects.
Spending ramp and stock take
Amazon's third-quarter update on Thursday showed capital spending rose more than analysts had anticipated. Across the 12 months ending Sept. 30, those outlays produced negative free cash flow totaling $42.4 billion. The stock was off about 2% around midday in New York. By the end of September, total spending commitments stood at $883 billion, 36% higher than three months prior and more than twice the level at the same point in 2025.
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What to watch from here
AWS chief Matt Garman put it plainly on Bloomberg Television 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," adding that Amazon is working with partners to "figure out how we can balance some of those cash flows as we're really ramping up aggressively." For investors, the through-line is straightforward - Amazon is committing to massive AI buildout while adding another funding lever that does not rely on immediate operating cash or straight debt issuance.
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