Leading technology companies including Nvidia and Broadcom are relying on off balance sheet accounting to manage commitments that include $1.2 trillion in uncommenced lease obligations. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal found a total of $3 trillion in AI related obligations across nine firms. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft account for $2.4 trillion of those liabilities, nearly four times their $604 billion in reported long term debt, with most agreements remaining non cancelable under generally accepted accounting principles.
Companies are increasingly using financial engineering to fund infrastructure as US issuance of GPU backed debt hit a record $70 billion in 2026. Total AI related bond issuance reached $344 billion this year, $200 billion above 2025 levels. This surge in spending coincides with falling margins, as average LLM token costs dropped to $1.05 per 1 million tokens, the lowest level since December.
Key sources
- SOURCE@globalmktobserv“Uncommenced lease obligations alone have roughly QUADRUPLED from a year earlier, reaching ~$1.2 trillion”x.com
- SUPPORT@globalmktobserv“Average LLM token cost is down to $1.05 per 1 million tokens, the lowest since December”x.com
- SUPPORT@globalmktobserv“US issuance of debt backed by GPUs and other AI chips has surged to ~$70 billion in 2026, an all-time high”x.com
- SUPPORT@dkthomp“closed weight models might be less profitable than anticipated”x.com
- SOURCE@asharma“reviewed disclosures from nine major tech companies”x.com
- SUPPORT@techmeme“far exceeding their $600B in reported capex”x.com
- SUPPORT@c_barraud“Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft now have more than $2.4 trillion in future off-balance-sheet commitments”x.com