I’m not sure I follow your logic. There is a market for, say, cloud computing services. If it helps you could see it as an exchange of cloud computing services

I’m not sure I follow your logic. There is a market for, say, cloud computing services. If it helps you could see it as an exchange of cloud computing services for equity, but the reality is the cash invested likely was not 1:1 exchanged to cloud computing and they had optionality. That’s somewhat irrelevant, but it’s still a real truth. Any money used to purchase cloud services has real expenses and capital allocations associated, real economic value for the company who exchanged equity, and the investment still sits as an asset and liability. It’s hard to argue an AI model company derives no value from GPU hours, or Amazon derives no value from owning equity in and locking an AI model company into their platform and business relationships. This isn’t a wash trade, which literally has no economic value, and it isn’t fake revenues as there is a real exchange of economic value for both parties. The fact the exchange involves at cost services isn’t nothing - it magnifies the investment as otherwise they would have to purchase the services at a higher cost. The idea that reserved capital equipment and supporting services have no material cost or value to Amazon is on the surface false - they have a very real cost, both opportunity and capital, especially in a time of high end GPU shortage. The idea that reserved high end GPU at cost has no value for an AI company is absurd. The fact it was done as cash gives flexibility in how the investment is used, and the fact it counts as a tiny amount of aws revenues is not materially relevant to anyone.