Nick Saraev says Amazon suspended his account after he tried to buy seven Nvidia DGX Spark AI mini PCs. The developer described the experience in a post on X, saying four separate orders were cancelled. Screenshots he shared showed the planned purchase included machines with 128GB of memory and 4TB of storage each.

Saraev said Amazon offered to review the case after he had posted about the issue, but ultimately decided to suspend his account without giving a specific reason. Correspondence shared by the developer referred to earlier attempts to verify the account. Saraev said he had completed the verification process. Amazon’s terms, the report notes, reserve the company’s right to refuse services, close accounts or cancel orders.

He is not the only buyer to report problems. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said on X that Amazon cancelled his regular orders after he tried to buy two Nvidia GPUs, which are often used for local AI inference. In September, a user on Nvidia’s developer forum also said Amazon had suspended their account for “suspicious activity” after they tried to purchase two Asus GX10 systems.

The reports come amid rising costs for electronic components and limited memory supplies. The article attributes the shortage to demand from AI data centers, as chipmakers shift production to serve the sector. Hardware companies including Apple, Samsung and Dell have faced higher component costs, with some passing increases on to customers.

Interest in running AI models locally has also grown alongside the availability of open-weight models. Local processing can keep documents and other data on a user’s computer and can work without an internet connection. But the hardware can also be attractive to malicious users, potentially prompting retailers to take a closer look at large orders.

A Reddit post cited in the report said US retailer Micro Center asked one customer to sign a declaration, provide photo identification and state where the hardware would be installed. The form also prohibited exporting or reselling the equipment. The reports suggest that supply constraints may not be the only factor behind retailers’ decisions to cancel or scrutinize some AI hardware purchases.

Sources: t3n.