AWS orders 2 million more Nvidia chips

On August twenty-sixth, Amazon Web Services announced it will buy two million additional Blackwell Ultra, Rubin, and Rubin Ultra GPUs from Nvidia, to be deployed across its global infrastructure in twenty twenty-seven and twenty twenty-eight.

Total order tops 3 million chips

This deal adds to over one million Nvidia GPUs that AWS committed to at Nvidia GTC twenty twenty-six in March, bringing the total to more than three million GPUs due before twenty twenty-nine.

More chips than employees

Amazon ended twenty twenty-five with about one point fifty-eight million full- and part-time employees. At three million GPUs against that workforce, AWS will have nearly one point nine Nvidia GPUs per employee.

Amazon cuts staff while buying chips

Amazon cut around thirty thousand corporate roles between October twenty twenty-five and January twenty twenty-six. HR executive Beth Galetti described this as reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.

“reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy”

Building on existing Nvidia base

AWS already owns thousands of H100 and H200 GPUs from Nvidia. Omdia estimates Amazon bought one hundred ninety-six thousand Hopper GPUs in twenty twenty-four alone, though this is smaller than Microsoft's count of four hundred eighty-five thousand.

Counting GPUs is complicated

Nvidia and Amazon did not specify what counts as a GPU in their deal. Nvidia counts Rubin-generation GPUs by compute die rather than by package, meaning the same physical unit could be counted as one or multiple GPUs depending on the method.

Demand far outpaces supply

AWS revenue rose thirty-seven percent year over year to forty-two point two billion dollars in the second quarter. CEO Andy Jassy said capacity would fall short of demand this year and likely next, adding the demand already committed for twenty twenty-eight is striking.

“the demand we already have for 2028 is striking”

Amazon's cash flow turns negative

Amazon's free cash flow has turned negative as it funds its bid to be one of the largest hyperscalers. AWS contracted backlog reached four hundred ninety-six billion dollars, up from three hundred sixty-four billion three months earlier.