The scale of the commitments
According to Bloomberg and relayed by IT之家, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle have reported spending commitments of more than $3 trillion for data centers and other AI-related infrastructure over the coming years. These are commitments for leases, construction, power and equipment purchases, some to be incurred in the near term and some tied to multiyear contracts, according to the source.
Alphabet appears to be the largest committer: in regulatory filings, the company reports total contractual obligations of more than $1 trillion, almost eight times the level a year earlier. Meta follows with more than $800 billion, nearly half of which is for leases on data centers not yet operational, with payments spread over up to 30 years. IT之家 notes that the data come from the latest corporate financial statements, except those of Microsoft, which date to the annual report for the fiscal year ended at the end of June and have not been updated.
The investment race and the returns conundrum
The growth in commitments reflects increasingly intense competition to build AI capacity. Susan Li, Meta's CFO, said during a call with analysts that the company plans to continue investing significantly to support its core business and new artificial intelligence projects, as reported by the source.
The central question, according to IT之家, is whether the huge sums earmarked for data centers can be recouped. Alphabet and Meta, among the world's most profitable companies, have seen free cash flow swing from positive to negative precisely because of these investments in potentially disruptive new businesses. Oracle was reportedly the first major tech company to record negative free cash flow because of investments in AI data centers; in its investor presentation this week, it indicated a return to positive cash flow by 2028, also counting on vendor financing and customer prepayments to reduce the initial outlay.
Limits of comparison and open questions
The source stresses that the commitments are not fully comparable: not all the sums are for data centers, and reporting criteria differ among the companies. Meta includes in its budget some spending on consumer hardware products from the Reality Labs division, while Alphabet and Amazon also include content licensing costs. The survey also does not take into account existing leases, debt and other relevant expense items.
Overall, commitments for future lease payments by the five companies total $1.3 trillion, while other purchase obligations reach $1.9 trillion, according to the data cited. It remains to be verified how these commitments actually evolve, their timing and the companies' ability to generate adequate returns, elements that the available material does not allow to quantify.
