Hyperscalers are locking in large amounts of compute capacity through agreements that bypass standard balance sheet reporting. A Wall Street Journal review of disclosures found these commitments total $3 trillion, far exceeding the $600 billion in reported capital expenditures across a group of nine large technology firms. These obligations consist of contractual agreements to purchase servers, energy, and cloud infrastructure, alongside leases that have not yet commenced.
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft account for more than $2.4 trillion of the total off-balance-sheet obligations. These long-term contracts provide spending visibility for suppliers like Nvidia and Broadcom, as the rigid nature of the agreements makes it difficult for the companies to reduce investment even if AI revenues slow.