Amazon is buying billions in Nvidia AI systems it can't yet turn on

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images AWS expected to get $5 billion of Nvidia GB300 racks, followed by $3 billion more each month.

Some of these GPU systems are being stored elsewhere due to lack of data center power.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sees AI as a major opportunity, but getting capacity online is a challenge.

Amazon is racing to secure AI hardware earlier than before, even as data center power shortages leave some GPU systems waiting in warehouses.

Under a new Early Rack Receipt process, AWS expected to receive roughly $5 billion in Nvidia's GB300 server racks at US facilities before final deployment, according to August internal emails reviewed by Business Insider.

The company projected roughly $3 billion more in GB300 racks each month "for the foreseeable future," one of the emails said.

Some AWS sites had room for more racks but not enough available power to turn them on, people familiar with the effort said, leaving finished equipment to be staged at intermediary warehouses until the facilities were ready.

At least one AWS team did not have "a clear forecasted path" for getting the incoming racks into data centers at the time, according to one of the emails.

Dark GPUs A lack of new electricity capacity is one of several bottlenecks slowing the buildout of some AI data centers.

This has led to a phenomenon known as dark GPUs , where AI chips and servers are purchased but can sit idle due to power supply issues or other challenges. (Dark GPUs can also refer to system design flaws that mean this gear isn't fully used after being plugged in).

This is partly why financial pressure is mounting on big data center projects.

Money must be spent upfront to secure supplies of Nvidia GPUs and other valuable AI components.

But if some data centers aren't ready to run, those early investments can tie up huge amounts of cash.

Debt financing can fill in the gaps, but the market has become less willing to lend against some of these projects lately.