Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65tn on opaque AI funding
Data center leases, GPU supply contracts raise liabilities at Meta,
Oracle, Nikkei study shows
KOHEI YAMADA
July 21, 2026
PALO ALTO, California -- Hidden debt at U.S. tech giants swelled
eightfold in four years to an estimated $1.65 trillion as artificial
intelligence investments ballooned, a Nikkei study shows, exceeding
actual debt and making it tougher for investors to assess risk.
Nikkei examined recent financial statements and other materials from
Google owner Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Oracle. The four
companies aside from Oracle are scheduled to announce their second
quarter earnings from Wednesday, meaning the figures may increase further.
The five companies' hidden debt, which does not appear on balance
sheets, totaled $1.65 trillion in the most recent quarter, exceeding the
roughly $1.35 trillion in debt reflected on their balance sheets. The
data includes some estimates.
Meta's off-balance-sheet debt is particularly high at about $420
billion, nearly triple its recorded debt.
These companies are rapidly bolstering their data centers and other
computing resources to power AI development, and are entering into
long-term purchase agreements for graphics processing units (GPUs) and
servers.
Constructing data centers requires investment in the billions or even
tens of billions of dollars. Tech companies often enter into lease
agreements with data center operators to keep initial costs down. Some
of these are arrangements where the operator provides the land,
buildings and power facilities, which the tech company leases over the
long term.
Under accounting rules, GPUs and servers under long-term contracts that
have not yet been delivered -- as well as lease agreements for data
centers that are not yet operational -- are treated as off-balance-sheet
items.
Oracle is advancing a large-scale data center project called Stargate
with OpenAI, using lease agreements with external operators. Its hidden
debt reached $273.3 billion as of the end of May, a more-than 30-fold
increase in four years.
Companies disclose such future debt not in their balance sheets, but in
annotations to their quarterly financial statements. This is a
legitimate practice under accounting rules, but may make it difficult
for retail investors to recognize risks.
Some in the market have begun to show concern. Morgan Stanley analyzed
the matter in detail in an investor report, while rating agency Moody's
also pointed out in a February report that commitments for leases yet to
begin were ballooning.
[...]
https://archive.ph/lOlv5
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