Nine tech giants carry $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI obligations, a figure triple their reported debt and nearly double a July estimate of $1.65 trillion. Deferred depreciation could exceed $520 billion over three years, pushing Oracle's revenue share from 7% toward 28% and Meta's from 9% toward 19%. Meta hides $27 billion in Hyperion data center debt by making Blue Owl Capital the majority owner while Meta serves only as tenant.
It sounds nuts, but SoFi1 is giving new Active Invest users up to $3,000 in stock for a limited time, and all it takes is a $50 deposit to get started.2 See for yourself (Sponsor) Every bull market eventually asks investors to squint past a number they'd rather not look at. In 2000, it was cash burn rates at dot-coms with no revenue. In 2008, it was mortgage-backed securities nobody could quite value.
Today, it's the financing behind the AI buildout -- and specifically, how much of it never shows up on a balance sheet at all. For most of 2026, the story was that Big Tech's free cash flow couldn't keep pace with AI capital expenditures. Then it became a story about off-balance-sheet arrangements.
Now, thanks to new reporting, the number attached to that second story has nearly doubled. In July, Nikkei estimated that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) were carrying roughly $1.65 trillion in obligations that don't appear as debt on their balance sheets -- mostly future spending tied to data centers, chips, and power. That was startling enough.
But a Wall Street Journal analysis published this month found the real figure across nine companies -- those five plus Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), and SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) -- sits closer to $3 trillion, based on filings mostly current through June 2026. SoFi Active Invest is offering a limited-time promotion. Open an account, fund it with $50 or more, and you could receive up to $3,000 in complimentary stock for Active Invest accounts.
See for yourself by clicking here now. That's not a rounding error. It's the difference between a concerning trend and a systemic one.
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