Five major American technology companies have accumulated a massive pile of off-balance-sheet liabilities to support the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure, drawing close scrutiny from credit rating agencies over the associated risks.

According to a Moody's rating report, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle collectively carry roughly $2.8 trillion in AI-related off-balance-sheet obligations, covering lease agreements, purchase commitments, and guarantees, none of which appear on their corporate balance sheets.

This figure marks an explosive jump from $350 billion in 2023, reflecting how intensely these firms are accelerating their bets on infrastructure amid the AI wave.

Moody's analysts David Gonzales and Alastair Drake noted in the report, "It is not just the absolute numbers that deserve attention, but the pace at which these commitments are growing with every passing fiscal quarter."

The five companies are also among the most active issuers in the US investment-grade corporate bond market this year, and Moody's stressed that analyzing these off-balance-sheet commitments is essential to properly assessing their credit profiles.

All three liability categories climb sharply, data center leases surpass $1 trillion

Structurally, all three types of off-balance-sheet obligations show significant upward movement.

Leases for data centers that have not yet been built have topped $1 trillion this year, up more than 50% from $662 billion a year earlier. Purchase commitments, which are contracts to buy goods or services in the future, have jumped from $528 billion to $1.57 trillion. Guarantees have risen from $51 billion to $137 billion.

Moody's pointed out that these five companies follow current US accounting standards, and because these obligations do not yet represent current liabilities, they are not required to be recorded on the balance sheet. Furthermore, not every commitment will ultimately convert into actual cash outflows.

Off-balance-sheet commitments become a risk signal

Even so, the Moody's report emphasizes that the rapid swelling of these off-balance-sheet obligations reveals the financing strain tech giants are under as they build out AI infrastructure.

With data center demand remaining robust, these companies are racing to expand computing capacity, and the long-term financial commitments formed along the way continue to grow in scale.

For investors, this trend means that relying solely on traditional balance sheets is no longer enough to gauge the true financial exposure of these firms.

Moody's report suggests that when analyzing the debt-paying ability and credit quality of such hyperscale cloud and AI platform companies, off-balance-sheet commitments have become a critical variable that cannot be ignored.