Alphabet, Meta lead Big Tech's $3.2T in off-balance-sheet commitments

Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Meta (Nasdaq: META), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) had signed $3.2 trillion of leases and purchase commitments that are not yet on their balance sheets, by a SaasBuzz count of their latest filings. Alphabet holds $1.05 trillion of it and Meta $810.3 billion, so two companies account for 58% of the total.

The sum is 4.4 times the $723.8 billion of cash the five companies' operations produced over their latest four quarters. Bloomberg reported on October 30 that Big Tech holds $3 trillion in spending commitments for the AI boom; with Amazon's quarterly report filed the same day, every company's latest figure is now public, and the table below adds them up line by line. Our analysis of how Big Tech pays for its capital spending covered the cash, bonds and stock behind the build-out; this piece counts what has been promised for later.

The five, ranked

Each company discloses two kinds of promise that sit outside its balance sheet. The first is leases, mostly for data centers, that have been signed but have not started; a lease becomes a liability only when it begins. The second is purchase commitments: contracts to buy servers, chips, network gear, energy and capacity, which become costs or assets only when the goods arrive.

Source: SaasBuzz analysis of the companies' latest 10-Q filings, at September 30, 2026 (Oracle at August 31); Microsoft's purchase and construction commitments from its 10-K, at June 30, 2026. Leases are future payments on leases signed but not yet started, undiscounted. Buys are purchase commitments as each company defines them, below. Figures in billions of dollars.

Purchase commitments are the larger part, 59% of the total, and Alphabet's are the largest single figure. Alphabet's 10-Q lists "$924.4 billion material purchase commitments, of which $802.1 billion relates to multi-year commitments for technical infrastructure and inventory, energy take-or-pay contracts, and content licenses," with $213.4 billion due within 12 months. Most of the money is for long-term supply agreements "to secure future production capacity for technical infrastructure and inventory components," running through 2032. Our report on Alphabet's quarter covers the results the filing came with.

Leases are where Microsoft, Meta and Oracle concentrate. Microsoft's 10-Q lists $364.6 billion of leases, "primarily for datacenters," that had not started at September 30, up $35.5 billion in three months. Oracle's 10-Q reports $288 billion of lease commitments, "substantially all related to data center arrangements," up from $260 billion three months earlier, with terms of 15 to 19 years. Relative to its size, Oracle's leases are the heaviest load in the table.

How each company draws the line

The five do not define purchase commitments the same way, so the totals are each company's own measure added together, not one standard applied to all five.

• Alphabet: material purchase commitments, which include open purchase orders. The supply agreements are counted "at the maximum contractual limits," and Alphabet says the commitments are "subject to counterparties performing on their obligations."

• Meta: $454.52 billion of "non-cancelable contractual commitments," mostly third-party cloud capacity, servers and network infrastructure, energy for data centers and Reality Labs hardware, in its 10-Q.

• Microsoft: $194.06 billion of purchase commitments, which "primarily relate to datacenters and include open purchase orders and take-or-pay contracts," plus $34.57 billion of construction commitments, from its annual report. Its quarterly report does not update either figure.

• Amazon: $159.64 billion of agreements to acquire property and equipment plus $94.76 billion of unconditional purchase obligations for energy, digital media content and software, from the commitments table in its 10-Q. Amazon excludes "open orders for purchases that support normal operations and are generally cancellable."

• Oracle: $34.15 billion of "unconditional purchase and certain other obligations" with terms of a year or more, mainly components for cloud infrastructure and power for data centers.

The table leaves out commitments that depend on something else happening. Alphabet also discloses $21.9 billion of future funding commitments to companies it has invested in, and $75.7 billion of backstop obligations relating to data centers, including lease payments and energy costs for certain agreements. Meta has contingent obligations to buy up to $14.72 billion of cloud capacity over five years, "which may be reduced if the cloud service provider is able to sell such capacity to other customers." Counted in, Alphabet's figure alone would pass $1.1 trillion.

The amounts disclosed above reflect pricing and volumes at the maximum contractual limits of the current contracts.Alphabet's 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, on its long-term supply agreements

That caveat cuts both ways. Alphabet's purchase figure may overstate what it will pay if volumes or prices come in under the caps, and its open purchase orders, which Amazon leaves out, are in it. Read strictly, Alphabet's multi-year commitments alone, $802.1 billion, plus its leases would still put it first.

Against the cash and the contracts

Two comparisons give the totals proportion. The first is cash: how many years of each company's current operating cash flow the commitments equal. The second is backlog: the revenue customers have contracted for but the company has not yet recognized, which is what the spending is meant to serve.

Source: SaasBuzz analysis of company filings. Cash is operating cash flow over the latest four quarters: to September 30, 2026, and to August 31 for Oracle. Backlog is remaining performance obligations; Amazon's covers contracts of more than a year. Meta does not disclose a revenue backlog.

Oracle's commitments equal 6.9 years of its operating cash, the most of the five, but they are half its $664 billion of remaining performance obligations, the smallest ratio. Microsoft and Amazon have more revenue under contract than they have committed to spend: $683 billion and about $578 billion of backlog, respectively.

Alphabet and Meta are the outliers on the second measure. Alphabet's commitments are 1.86 times its $567.7 billion backlog, $560.8 billion of which is for Google Cloud, though its commitments also cover energy and content licenses. Meta does not disclose a revenue backlog, so no contracted customer revenue is set against its $810.3 billion. S&P has cut Meta's rating outlook to negative over its AI spending.

What the industry is saying

The figure had been circulating before Amazon's filing completed it. Steve Rattner, the financier who led the Obama administration's auto task force, posted on October 28 and wrote that whether the bets pay off is "an open question."

By October 30 it had reached Washington. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont put the number in a post addressed to "Big Tech Oligarchs", warning that there would be no bailout if the bet failed.

The filings do not describe the $3.2 trillion as debt. A lease becomes a liability once it starts, and a purchase commitment turns into a bill only as the goods are delivered, so most of the total is owed over years, not now. The companies say they can carry it. Meta's 10-Q says its available funds and cash flow from operations and financing activities "will be sufficient to meet our operational cash needs and fund our cash commitments for investing and financing activities, including investments in infrastructure and AI initiatives," and that "from time to time we expect to seek to raise additional capital through debt, equity, or other financing arrangements." Microsoft says its cash, cash flows and "access to capital markets" will remain sufficient, and Amazon says the same of its cash, borrowing arrangements and "other financing activities." Oracle says it expects to use what it has committed to buy, and could sell excess products on the open market if it does not.

What it means for software buyers, builders and investors

For investors, the commitments are the part of the AI build-out that does not appear in capital spending yet. They turn into capital spending, lease costs and depreciation as they are delivered, and Alphabet alone has $213.4 billion of purchase commitments due within a year. The leases add fixed payments for terms of up to 30 years once they start. Meta calls its contracts non-cancelable and Amazon describes its obligations as unconditional, so a slowdown in AI demand would not by itself release them, though some of Alphabet's supply agreements allow it to partially reduce committed volumes.

For software buyers, the commitments are capacity. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Alphabet have signed $2.4 trillion of leases and purchase commitments between them, against $2.5 trillion of revenue their customers have contracted for. A buyer negotiating a multi-year cloud or AI contract is dealing with a seller that has already committed to pay for the capacity it is selling.

For software companies that build on these clouds, the table shows who is most exposed if AI revenue arrives late. Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle have more contracted revenue than commitments, though Oracle's commitments are the largest relative to its cash. Alphabet's are 1.86 times its backlog, and Meta discloses no contracted revenue behind its $810.3 billion.

Method

The rule, set before the figures were compiled: five companies, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle, each at the date of its latest quarterly report. That is September 30, 2026 for Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon, and August 31, 2026 for Oracle, whose fiscal year ends May 31. A commitment counts if the company discloses it as a lease signed but not yet started, or as a firm purchase commitment, unconditional purchase obligation or non-cancelable contractual commitment that is not on its balance sheet. Contingent commitments (backstops, guarantees, capacity the company may not have to buy), funding commitments to investees, debt, and leases already on the balance sheet are left out. Amazon's "other commitments," which include liabilities already on its balance sheet, are also left out. Microsoft's quarterly report updates only its leases, so its purchase and construction commitments are the June 30 figures from its annual report; without them the total would be $2.97 trillion.

All amounts are undiscounted future payments, as the companies report them, and run over different periods: Alphabet's leases start between 2026 and 2031 and Meta's through 2036. The commitments are not all for AI: they include energy, content licenses and consumer hardware. Operating cash flow over four quarters is the latest annual figure plus the latest year-to-date figure minus the year-earlier one; Amazon reports the twelve-month figure itself. Backlog is each company's remaining performance obligations as reported.

Questions readers ask

Is this debt?

Not yet. Leases become liabilities on the balance sheet when they start, and purchase commitments become costs or assets when the goods arrive. Until then the companies disclose them in notes to their accounts.

Why is Alphabet so far ahead?

Alphabet's purchase commitments, $924.4 billion, are more than twice any other company's. They include open purchase orders and count supply agreements at their maximum volumes and prices, which other companies' figures may not.

Why does Oracle look small?

Oracle's total is the smallest, but its company is too: its commitments equal 6.9 years of its operating cash flow, the highest of the five.