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[DATA CENTERS](/news/tag/data-centers/)
[LEASE ACCOUNTING](/news/tag/lease-accounting/)
[OFF-BALANCE-SHEET OBLIGATIONS](/news/tag/off-balance-sheet-obligations/)
[PRIVATE CREDIT](/news/tag/private-credit/)
- The latest available filings produce approximately $1.67 trillion of disclosed obligations: $821 billion of leases that have not commenced and $848 billion of purchase, construction and other commitments. [13] - The total is not exclusively AI-related. Company disclosures also include energy, content, consumer hardware and other obligations that cannot be separated from AI spending using public data. [2][3][6] - Uncommenced leases generally become balance-sheet lease liabilities when facilities are delivered, but the cash payments remain spread over their contractual terms. [8] - Guarantees and special-purpose vehicles create additional credit exposure, but their full notionals cannot simply be added to the $1.67 trillion without potentially double-counting leases already included in the total. [2][3][7] - Nikkei’s comparison with $1.35 trillion of balance-sheet debt lacks a published company-by-company reconciliation, so the resulting 122% figure is not a conventional leverage ratio.
[1] A reconstruction of five technology companies’ latest financial disclosures produces approximately $1.67 trillion of future obligations. About $821 billion consists of leases signed for facilities that have not yet been delivered. Another $848 billion covers purchase, construction and other contractual commitments.[13]
That broadly reproduces Nikkei Asia’s estimate of $1.65 trillion across Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle. The description of the total as “hidden debt,” however, combines instruments with different accounting treatment, payment schedules and legal characteristics. The figures are disclosed in SEC filings, and most do not represent borrowed money.[1]
The commitments are still consequential. They reserve a substantial amount of future cash flow for data centers, cloud capacity, servers, energy and related infrastructure before all the facilities are operating. But public filings do not identify how much of every purchase category is specifically attributable to AI, and some categories include content, consumer hardware and other spending.[2][3][6]
The filing totals can be reconstructed #
Meta has the largest total. Its March 31 filing disclosed $182.88 billion of leases that had not commenced and $237.67 billion of non-cancelable contractual commitments, producing $420.55 billion. The contractual commitments relate mostly to third-party cloud capacity, servers, network infrastructure, data centers and Reality Labs hardware. Meta signed another approximately $24 billion of infrastructure contracts after quarter-end; that subsequent amount is not included in the $420.55 billion snapshot.[2]
Alphabet reported $75.6 billion of leases that had not commenced and $332.4 billion of purchase and other contractual obligations, for a total of $408 billion. Its purchase category covers technical infrastructure and inventory as well as content licenses and energy take-or-pay contracts. Alphabet says agreements with variable terms are counted only to the extent of fixed minimum quantities or pricing.[3]
Microsoft’s total is approximately $338.7 billion. Its March 2026 filing disclosed $196.6 billion of additional leases, primarily for data centers, that had not commenced. Its latest detailed contractual-obligations table, dated June 30, 2025, contained $32.15 billion of construction commitments and $109.95 billion of purchase commitments. Microsoft says the purchase commitments primarily relate to data centers and include open purchase orders and take-or-pay contracts.[4][5]
Amazon disclosed $106.35 billion of uncommenced leases, $103.77 billion of unconditional purchase obligations and $18.81 billion of other commitments at March 31, totaling approximately $228.93 billion. Its unconditional purchase obligations include energy, property, equipment, software and media contracts. Amazon excludes ordinary open orders that support normal operations and are generally cancellable.[6]
Oracle accounts for another $273.31 billion: $260 billion of leases that had not commenced and $13.31 billion of unconditional purchase and other obligations, primarily for data-center power arrangements. Oracle disclosed another $19 billion of cloud-infrastructure purchase commitments signed after its May 31 fiscal year-end, which is not included in the reconstruction.[7]
Together, the filing figures total approximately $1.669 trillion. The snapshot mixes reporting dates, and Microsoft’s purchase and construction figures are older than the other inputs because its quarterly filing does not update that table. Subsequent contracts disclosed by Meta and Oracle also mean the companies’ current commitments are already higher than the reconstructed period-end total.
Why uncommenced leases remain outside the balance sheet #
Under US lease accounting, a lessee recognizes a right-of-use asset and a lease liability at the commencement date—the point when the lessor makes the underlying asset available for use. Before then, the data-center operator generally has not delivered the facility and the technology company does not yet control it.[8]
That recognition rule explains the $821 billion lease bucket. The contracts may be signed and non-cancelable, but facilities still under construction have not reached accounting commencement. Once delivered, the related right-of-use assets and lease liabilities are recorded, generally using the present value of required lease payments rather than the full undiscounted amount disclosed in the footnote.[8]
Recognition does not make the entire lease immediately payable. The liability appears when the facility is available, while cash rent remains due according to a schedule that can run for decades. Meta’s pending leases have terms of up to 30 years, Alphabet’s primarily extend as long as 25 years, and Oracle’s large new data-center leases generally run for 15 to 19 years.[2][3][7]
Moody’s reached a similar accounting conclusion in its February analysis of the five hyperscalers. It identified $662 billion of uncommenced leases at the end of 2025 and said the accounting treatment did not amount to avoiding recognition of an existing liability: the services needed to trigger lease accounting had not yet been delivered. Moody’s nevertheless said the structures could understate economic risk and that it may adjust debt metrics for expected cash outflows.[9]
Purchase contracts follow a related principle. A commitment to buy chips, power or cloud capacity is generally an executory contract: both sides still have substantial performance obligations. Unlike a bond, there is no borrowed principal that has already been received and must be repaid.
Some purchase commitments still behave like debt in an economic sense. Take-or-pay provisions can require payment for minimum capacity regardless of utilization. Non-cancelable leases and capacity agreements can also support borrowing by a data-center developer because lenders can underwrite against the hyperscaler’s contracted payments.
Guarantees are a separate layer of risk #
The clearest debt-like exposures occur when a hyperscaler supports financing raised by another entity. The Bank for International Settlements calls this structure “shadow borrowing.” A dedicated vehicle develops the facility, outside investors provide debt and equity, and the technology company signs a long-term lease or capacity agreement, sometimes with an additional guarantee.[10]
Alphabet disclosed $28.4 billion of credit-derivative backstops at March 31, plus $9 billion of financial guarantees. It signed another backstop for approximately $15.3 billion in April and had agreed to provide up to $33.3 billion of future support, subject to final terms. Alphabet carries the credit derivatives at fair value; their notional amounts describe potential payments under specified default scenarios, not scheduled debt principal.[3]
Meta’s Louisiana data-center venture uses another structure. Meta owns 20% of the venture, has an initial lease commitment of approximately $12.31 billion and has provided residual-value guarantees with an aggregate threshold of about $28 billion. Meta recorded no guarantee liability because it judged payment was not probable. Its total maximum exposure to loss was approximately $46 billion, including its investment, leases, funding commitments and guarantee exposure.[2]
Oracle’s lease pipeline includes a facility for which it guaranteed up to $3.3 billion of the lessor’s borrowing. That guarantee is attached to a lease already included in Oracle’s $260 billion pipeline.[7]
Those examples show why guarantee notionals cannot simply be added to the $1.67 trillion. Meta’s maximum-exposure calculation includes its lease, while Oracle’s guaranteed borrowing supports a facility counted in its lease total. Adding every disclosed maximum would count parts of the same economic arrangement more than once.
The guarantees remain important because they determine who absorbs losses if a facility’s value falls or its financing fails. Moody’s has focused particularly on residual-value guarantees, which can protect a landlord if a tenant declines to renew and the facility is worth less than a contractually defined threshold.[9]
Five different credit profiles sit behind one number #
The $1.67 trillion figure is an undiscounted sum extending across periods of up to 30 years. Comparing it directly with current debt ignores duration, discounting, the assets and services to be received, and the operating cash flow generated during the contracts’ lives.
It also combines different business models. Meta primarily funds infrastructure through advertising cash flow. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Oracle operate cloud businesses with large remaining performance obligations, or RPOs, representing contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized.
Amazon reported approximately $364 billion of long-term performance obligations at March 31, including a cloud arrangement with OpenAI expanded to $138 billion. Alphabet reported $467.6 billion, mostly related to Google Cloud. Microsoft reported approximately $633 billion of commercial RPO. Oracle reported $638 billion at its fiscal year-end and said much of its recent growth came from large AI contracts in which customers prepaid for GPUs or supplied the equipment themselves.[3][4][6][12]
RPO is not cash or a receivable, and definitions and durations differ among companies. Revenue depends on each provider delivering the contracted service and, in some cases, on customer usage and performance. The backlog therefore provides evidence of future demand, not a dollar-for-dollar offset against infrastructure commitments.
The comparison with approximately $1.35 trillion of reported debt is the least reproducible part of the original claim. Nikkei says its data includes estimates but does not publish a company-level bridge showing which debt and lease-liability categories make up the denominator. The resulting 122% comparison illustrates scale, but it should not be used as an accounting leverage ratio.[1]
The more informative measures are payment schedules, cancellation rights, minimum-purchase provisions, guarantee triggers and customer concentration. Microsoft’s purchase table remains dated June 30, 2025, while Meta and Oracle have already disclosed another $43 billion of contracts signed after their latest balance-sheet dates. The aggregate will continue moving before all five companies publish another full set of comparable disclosures.
Companies mentioned #
Further sources #
[1] Nikkei Asia, “Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65tn on opaque AI fu… ↗
[[2] Meta Platforms Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, including leases… ↗](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026028526/meta-20260331.htm)
[[3] Alphabet Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, including leases, purc… ↗](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000048/goog-20260331.htm)
[[4] Microsoft Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, including $196.6 bill… ↗](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312526191507/msft-20260331.htm)
[[5] Microsoft fiscal 2025 Form 10-K, contractual obligations, construction commitme… ↗](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000095017025100235/msft-20250630.htm)
[6] Amazon Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, including leases, uncond… ↗+7 more
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