AMD Learns from Nvidia: How to Sell Chips for 12 Billion Hryvnias Using Financial Magic

It seems that AMD has fully absorbed the main lesson of the modern AI market: it's not enough to just develop a powerful silicon, you must also know how to sell it "properly." According to The Information, the "red" have decided to test a tactic their direct competitors from Nvidia honed to perfection — using their devices as a financial lever.

"Buy-Sell-Guarantee" Scheme

The essence of the deal looks as follows: the cloud startup Crusoe receives a $300 million (12,300,000,000 UAH) loan, provided by Goldman Sachs bank. This money will not be spent on free smoothies for the staff, but on purchasing AMD accelerators. The highlight is that the chips themselves serve as collateral for this loan. However, since banks are cautious structures, AMD had to become the guarantor of the deal. If Crusoe fails to find customers for these capacities, AMD commits to leasing its own chips from the startup.

For AMD, this is a winning situation in the short term. The company can immediately record a solid $300 million (12,300,000,000 UAH) sale in its financial report, which pleases investors on Wall Street. This allows demonstrating aggressive market share growth, even if the actual demand from end consumers slightly lags behind the ambitious production plans.

Copying the Leader as a Strategy

Although this is AMD's first experience with such a scheme, Nvidia has long practiced similar arrangements. For instance, through supporting providers like CoreWeave, the "green" have essentially created a closed capital circle where their devices help obtain loans to purchase new product batches. This allows increasing sales volumes much faster than would occur under the traditional direct sales model.

This approach is less about technology and more about aggressive marketing and risk management. AMD is forced to play by the rules established by the leader to avoid being left behind in the AI race.

Hardware for Data Centers in Ohio

The purchased accelerators will be sent to a new Crusoe data center in Ohio. Although exact specifications are not disclosed, industry sources hint that it may involve future models of AMD Instinct MI455X. These chips are supposed to be a response to the dominance of Blackwell architectures. For AMD, it's critically important to ensure their mass implementation from the start, even if it means assuming the financial obligations of the client.

The risks are evident: if the AI service market suddenly "cools down," AMD will find itself in a situation where it has to pay for renting its own hardware, which will already begin to become morally outdated. However, amid the current shortage of computing power, such a scenario seems unlikely to analysts. For now, this seems like a prudent move to strengthen positions in the battle for the corporate sector's budget billions.

While hardware giants build complex financial chains, software developers continue to increase the pace of releasing new models. Recently, Google introduced Gemini 3.1 Pro, updating its neural network just three months after the previous release.