Warning of AI credit risk, Moody's: The off-balance sheet commitments of the five major US giants have increased eightfold in three years, soaring to $2.8 trillion.

Five major U.S. tech giants have accumulated enormous off-balance sheet liabilities to support the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure, with their credit risk now under close watch by rating agencies.

According to a Moody’s rating report, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle together bear about $2.8 trillion in AI-related off-balance sheet obligations, including leasing agreements, purchase commitments, and guarantees, none of which are recorded on the companies’ balance sheets.

This figure has seen explosive growth from $350 billion in 2023, reflecting these companies’ accelerated bets on infrastructure amid the AI wave.

Moody’s analysts David Gonzales and Alastair Drake noted in the report, “What deserves attention is not just the absolute number, but the speed at which these commitments are increasing each quarter.”

These five companies are also among the most active issuers in this year’s U.S. investment-grade corporate bond market. Moody’s emphasized that analyzing these off-balance sheet commitments is critical for assessing their credit profiles.

Structurally, all three types of off-balance sheet obligations have experienced significant surges.

Leasing for data centers that have yet to be built exceeded $1 trillion this year, an increase of more than 50% over last year’s $662 billion; purchase commitments—contracts for the future acquisition of goods or services—jumped from $528 billion to $1.57 trillion; and the scale of guarantees rose from $51 billion to $137 billion.

Moody’s noted that these five companies all comply with current U.S. accounting standards, and since these obligations have not become current liabilities, they are not required to be included on balance sheets. Furthermore, not all commitments will ultimately result in actual cash outflows.

Nevertheless, Moody’s report highlights that the rapid expansion of these off-balance sheet obligations reveals the financing pressure tech giants face in building out AI infrastructure.

As demand for data centers continues to surge, these companies are competing to expand their computing power footprint, resulting in a sustained increase in long-term financial commitments.

For investors, this trend means that traditional balance sheets are no longer sufficient to fully evaluate these companies’ actual financial exposure.

Moody’s report indicated that, when analyzing the debt-servicing capacity and credit quality of such massive cloud computing and AI platform enterprises, off-balance sheet commitments have become a critical variable that cannot be ignored.