Customers prepay billions for AI chip capacity: what the terms reveal about who wins
tengyanAI · x · 2026-10-24
A Tessara research note reviews disclosures from 20 companies on customers prepaying billions to secure AI compute supply-chain capacity: Micron collected $12.75B in customer deposits in fiscal 2026 (mostly repayable 2029-2031, tied to minimum purchase commitments, with price bands negotiated separately); NVIDIA paid substrate makers like Ibiden a multibillion-dollar capacity reservation advance (3x ramp from Q1 2028) and booked Unimicron capacity from Q2 2027, flagging substrate as the next bottleneck. Key takeaway: upfront cash alone doesn't determine bargaining power — price protection, purchase credits and refund rights do. AXT protects Coherent's purchasing costs; Core Scientific credits construction funding against future bills; Nebius mixes funded contracts with capacity held for resale.
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