Amazon is paying for Nvidia AI server racks it cannot yet plug in, and one analyst says that helps explain why gaming graphics cards are scarce and expensive.
According to internal emails obtained by Business Insider, Amazon Web Services created an "Early Rack Receipt" process, which means paying for Nvidia GB300 racks (cabinets packed with AI chips) before they are installed. Amazon used to pay only once racks were running in a data center. Under the new process, about $5 billion worth of racks were paid for in August 2026, and a second email put further orders at $3 billion a month for the "foreseeable future".
The racks wait in holding warehouses until power is available at the data centers that will host them. Electricity, not floor space, is the constraint. One AWS team reportedly had no "clear forecasted path" for installing what it had bought.
Analyst Ed Zitron seized on Business Insider's explanation for the policy change: Amazon "has to compete more for scarce resources as it jockeys with rivals for access to Nvidia GPUs and other AI components." His reading is that Nvidia makes buyers over-order to keep their allocation, which he calls "deliberate channel stuffing", and that gaming supply suffers as a result.
That leap deserves scrutiny. Channel stuffing normally means a seller pushes more inventory into the sales channel than customers want, often to flatter revenue. What the emails describe looks more like buyers rushing to lock in scarce supply. From outside the two can look alike, but one is a seller's tactic and the other is a scramble. Nothing quoted says Nvidia demanded the early purchases.
The gamer-side symptoms are real, though. The RTX 5090 sells through third-party marketplaces for close to $10,000 in the US and over £6,000 in the UK. The RTX 5080 has reached £1,400 in the UK, and Newegg lists one model, direct from the retailer, at $2,000. Nvidia has denied rumors that the RTX 5090 is being discontinued.
Nvidia putting AI chips first is easy to believe, given the profits involved. Whether prioritizing customers is the same as manipulating them is the harder question, and the emails speak only to the first.