Big Tech's Hidden $2.8 Trillion AI Bet: How Five Giants Are Financing the Compute Race Through Off-Balance-Sheet Deals

Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle have accumulated $2.8 trillion in off-balance-sheet financial commitments as they race to build the computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence, reshaping how tech giants finance their most ambitious bets and raising fresh questions about investor risk assessment. These obligations—locked into long-term leases, chip purchase agreements, and data center development deals—exist mostly hidden in footnote disclosures rather than on balance sheets, a perfectly legal accounting maneuver that masks the true scale of the hyperscalers' debt burdens.