Nikkei: US tech giants' off-balance-sheet AI obligations rise 90% to $3.2 trillion

Nikkei Asia reported that off-balance-sheet debt tied to artificial intelligence at US tech giants has nearly doubled in six months, rising 90% to about $3.2 trillion. The report is datelined Palo Alto, California.

According to the report's subheading, commitments and obligations at Google, Meta and other companies have reached 80% of their assets. The available text of the article does not detail how the figure was calculated or which companies account for the largest shares.

Nikkei says investors are increasingly alarmed by what it calls seemingly unending spending. The article is illustrated with an Amazon data center in Indiana, as an example of the AI infrastructure the companies are building.

Off-balance-sheet obligations, such as long-term leases and purchase commitments, do not show up as ordinary borrowing, so they can be harder for investors to weigh when judging a company's financial exposure. A figure equal to 80% of assets suggests these commitments are large relative to the firms' asset bases, based on Nikkei's numbers.

The report points to a broader question in the AI sector: whether heavy spending on data centers and chips will generate returns large enough to cover the obligations. The coverage provided does not say how Nikkei assesses that risk, so any conclusion about the companies' financial stability would be speculative.

The full Nikkei report was not available in the material provided, so the methodology and the company-by-company breakdown remain unclear. Readers should look for those details, and for any response from the companies named.