A Business Insider report published October 20, 2026, said AWS was using an Early Rack Receipt process for Nvidia GB300 server racks, receiving them earlier in the supply chain than the previous practice of taking ownership when a finished rack reached a data center. The report also said some AWS sites had space for equipment but not enough power to turn it on, leaving finished systems staged at intermediary warehouses.
August internal emails cited by Business Insider projected roughly $5 billion in GB300 racks for U.S. facilities, followed by about $3 billion more per month “for the foreseeable future.” Those figures were projections, not confirmed delivery totals.
What the reported receipt process changed
Business Insider said AWS previously took ownership of a finished rack when it arrived at a data center. Under Early Rack Receipt, AWS could pay for and record certain racks earlier in the supply chain, before final deployment. That moves the reported point of ownership and accounting forward; it does not tell us how many racks were delivered under the process.
One internal email said at least one AWS team lacked a clear forecasted path for getting incoming racks into data centers at the time. Amazon’s spokesperson told Business Insider that the company routinely stages finished hardware near deployment sites for installation when capacity becomes available, and cited established systems for tracking infrastructure assets. The spokesperson disputed the broader characterization that Amazon lacked a path to bring racks into its data centers.
Power constraints affected some sites
People familiar with the effort told Business Insider that some AWS sites had room for racks but insufficient available power to turn on the equipment. Finished systems were reportedly held at intermediary warehouses until facilities were ready. The account describes some sites and systems, not every AWS GB300 rack.
AWS’s public GB300 service is a separate announcement
AWS announced general availability of Amazon EC2 P6e-GB300 UltraServers on December 2, 2025. AWS says the offering, accelerated by NVIDIA GB300 NVL72, provides 1.5 times the GPU memory and 1.5 times the FP4 compute without sparsity, compared with P6e-GB200.
That public cloud offering is distinct from the physical racks described in the October report. The announcement establishes that AWS made the service generally available; it does not identify the installation or power status of those particular racks.
Amazon’s broader spending picture
Business Insider also reported that Amazon expected about $220 billion in capital expenditures in 2026 and that its free cash flow had turned negative in the preceding quarter, the first time since 2023. The report did not assign that company-wide cash-flow result to the Early Rack Receipt process alone.
