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Free newsletter: Despite stories about gigawatts of capacity coming online, I've found that the vast majority of announced data centers have yet to be built, with many running far behind schedule. I now believe NVIDIA is warehousing at least a million GPUs. www.wheresyoured.at/where-are-al...

Ed, reading thru seems to imply that Nvidia is simultaneously selling chips before they're made and also "warehousing" (by whom?) brand new, unopened GPUs. Aside from the fact that these two narratives directly contradict each other, wouldn't those have to show up somewhere on the balance sheet?

I'm able to track the warehousing claim but don't quite see the selling unmade chips, besides the preorder campaign statement. I can't speak to what Ed thought, but the implication is that (if Nvidia sold them but that they couldn't be installed they'd be capital assets on the purchasers' books?

I think we've def seen examples of proactive purchases that will be accepted prior to data center startup but that's normal/expected given stated demand from customers. If the chips don't have a path to get plugged in then this is channel stuffing and will fall apart in no time

Mmm, makes sense. I think that channel stuffing is the broader idea, though the term that the article uses ("bill-and-hold") seems like a very specific form where NVDA warehouses the asset after sale to the customer. I don't see much evidence that this specific "bill-and-hold" concept is being used?