Off-balance-sheet AI debt has reached roughly $300 billion. Over the past 12 months, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia and Broadcom guaranteed loans for AI data centers and chips that mostly never hit their balance sheets, according to the Financial Times. Alphabet’s data center guarantees alone jumped from $16.9 billion to $43.8 billion in six months, with less than 2% booked as a liability.
The AI buildout has a second ledger. It sits in footnotes, special-purpose vehicles and residual value guarantees, not in the debt line investors watch.
The Financial Times reported on September 20 that Big Tech has extended about $300 billion in such guarantees in a year. That is the off-balance-sheet AI debt story in one number. The details matter more.
What is off-balance-sheet AI debt?
Off-balance-sheet AI debt is borrowing for data centers or chips that sits in a separate entity, usually a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), while a tech giant promises to cover losses if things go wrong. The guarantor gets cheap financing and control of the capacity. The loan itself stays off its reported debt.
The mechanics are simple. An SPV owns the building or the chips. Private credit funds and bond buyers lend to the SPV. The hyperscaler leases the capacity back.
The hyperscaler then signs a residual value guarantee or a lease backstop. Under current accounting rules it records only the modeled probability of loss, not the full promise. That is why Alphabet books less than 2% of its guarantees, per the FT.
Why lenders accept the structure
Lenders are not really underwriting the SPV. They are underwriting Alphabet or Meta. Guaranteed projects typically price 100 to 150 basis points over the guarantor’s own bonds, according to FT reporting relayed by Traders Union.
That spread is the price of keeping leverage metrics clean. For a company protecting its credit rating, it is cheap.
How much off-balance-sheet AI debt does each company carry?
The FT’s tally puts the biggest single guarantee with Nvidia, at about $105 billion, followed by Alphabet, Broadcom and Meta. Each uses a slightly different structure, but all share the same trait: the liability is disclosed in footnotes and measured at a fraction of its face value.
| Company | Guarantee / exposure | What it backs | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | ~$105B | SB Energy (SoftBank) Ohio campus for OpenAI, 20-year exclusive hardware lease from 2028 | FT, via Traders Union |
| Alphabet | $43.8B (up from $16.9B in six months) | Data center leases, including Fluidstack sites serving Anthropic | FT |
| Broadcom | ~$29B | 1GW of chips sold to an SPV that leases them to Anthropic | FT, via Traders Union |
| Meta | ~$28B residual value guarantee | Hyperion campus JV with Blue Owl in Louisiana | FT; Meta press release |
| Total | ~$300B | AI data centers and chips, past 12 months | FT |
One caution on the table. These figures come from FT reporting and secondary coverage of it, not from a single consolidated filing. Treat them as orders of magnitude, not audited totals.
How does Meta’s Hyperion deal keep $27 billion off its books?
Meta sold 80% of its Hyperion data center project to funds managed by Blue Owl Capital and kept 20%. The joint venture raised the money, much of it as bonds sold to PIMCO and other investors. Meta leases the campus back and guarantees part of its residual value.
The terms come straight from Meta’s October 2025 announcement. Total development costs were about $27 billion. Blue Owl contributed roughly $7 billion in cash. Meta took a one-time distribution of about $3 billion.
The lease and the guarantee
The lease has a four-year initial term with extension options. Meta calls that flexibility. It is also what keeps the deal off the balance sheet.
The residual value guarantee covers the first 16 years. If Meta walks away after a non-renewal, it makes a capped payment tied to the campus’s value at that point. The FT sizes that promise at about $28 billion.
In practice, the guarantee turns a short lease into a long-dated credit backstop. Bondholders get Meta’s credit. Meta’s reported debt barely moves.
How does Google guarantee Anthropic’s compute?
Google backstops lease payments that Fluidstack, a neocloud, owes to converted bitcoin miners. Fluidstack fills those sites with Google TPUs and rents the capacity to Anthropic. Google’s credit lowers everyone’s financing cost, and Google gets equity warrants in the landlords.
The template appeared in 2025. TeraWulf signed 200-plus MW of 10-year hosting deals with Fluidstack under a Google backstop.
Weeks later, Cipher Mining signed a $3 billion, 10-year deal for 168 MW in Texas. Google backstopped $1.4 billion of Fluidstack’s lease obligations and received warrants for about 5.4% of Cipher, according to Blockspace.
Multiply that model across a year of Anthropic compute demand and you get the jump to $43.8 billion. We covered the neocloud side of this market in our look at Crusoe’s $30.9 billion Series F.
Is off-balance-sheet AI debt a hidden risk for investors?
It is a disclosed risk, not a hidden one, but it is badly measured. The guarantees are legal and footnoted. The problem is that leverage ratios, credit models and screening tools read the balance sheet, not the footnotes, so the full exposure rarely shows up in the metrics investors use.
Doug Colandrea, a senior director at KBRA, described “significant expansion in off-balance-sheet exposure over the past year, increasing the complexity of credit risk profiles,” per the Traders Union summary of FT reporting.
The wider number is larger. Morgan Stanley estimates about $3.1 trillion of off-balance-sheet commitments across hyperscalers and chipmakers, according to the same coverage. That figure includes leases and purchase commitments, so it should not be added to the $300 billion.
The skeptical read
Here is the part the bulls skip. A guarantee is cheap only while the probability of loss stays low. That probability is modeled by the guarantor itself.
- Short leases, long assets. Meta’s four-year lease sits on a campus built to run for decades. The guarantee exists because the lease alone would not satisfy lenders.
- Concentrated tenants. Much of this capacity serves two customers, OpenAI and Anthropic. Both still burn cash and both are preparing IPOs.
- GPU depreciation. If demand slows after the capacity is built, older chips lose value faster than modeled, and residual values fall exactly when guarantees get tested.
- Circular financing. Nvidia guarantees a campus that will run Nvidia hardware for OpenAI. Broadcom finances chips it sells. Revenue and risk loop back to the same balance sheets.
None of this means a default is coming. Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia can cover these sums many times over. The issue is that reported leverage now understates real commitments by a wide margin.
Why this matters
This matters because the AI capex story investors price is built on reported numbers. If a meaningful share of the buildout is financed off the books, headline capex and debt understate how much capital, and how much risk, each company has committed to AI demand holding up.
It also shifts risk into private credit. Blue Owl, PIMCO, Apollo and BlackRock now hold paper whose real credit is Big Tech’s promise. If AI demand wobbles, the first stress shows up in these vehicles, not in Big Tech bond spreads.
And it ties the IPO pipeline to the guarantee web. Anthropic’s planned IPO and OpenAI’s delayed listing both depend on compute that someone else guaranteed. Their public filings will show what they owe under these leases.
For more on how trading firms are locking up the same capacity, see our coverage of Jane Street’s $20 billion in AI compute deals.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
FAQ: Off-balance-sheet AI debt
How much off-balance-sheet AI debt has Big Tech guaranteed?
About $300 billion in the past 12 months, according to the Financial Times, covering AI data centers and chips.
Is off-balance-sheet financing legal?
Yes. The structures comply with current accounting rules, and companies disclose guarantees in footnotes. They record only the estimated probability of loss as a liability.
Which company has the largest AI guarantee?
Nvidia, with about $105 billion tied to an SB Energy campus in Ohio built for OpenAI, per FT reporting.
How much has Alphabet guaranteed?
$43.8 billion in data center guarantees, up from $16.9 billion six months earlier. Less than 2% appears on its balance sheet, per the FT.
What is a residual value guarantee?
A promise to pay the owner of an asset if its value falls below an agreed level when a lease ends. Meta’s Hyperion guarantee covers the first 16 years of operations.
Who lends the money?
Private credit and bond investors, including Blue Owl, PIMCO, Apollo and BlackRock, which buy SPV debt backed by Big Tech credit.
Does this mean an AI bubble will burst?
Not necessarily. It means reported leverage understates real commitments, so any slowdown in AI demand would hit harder than balance sheets suggest.
The bottom line
Off-balance-sheet AI debt is now a $300 billion line item that appears nowhere as debt. Expect three things next. Rating agencies will start adjusting leverage for guarantees. Regulators will ask for clearer disclosure. And the Anthropic and OpenAI IPO filings will show, for the first time, how much of the AI buildout rests on someone else’s promise to pay.
Sources
- Financial Times: Big Tech keeps $300bn of AI exposure off balance sheets (Sept. 20, 2026)
- Meta: Joint venture with Blue Owl Capital to develop Hyperion data center (Oct. 21, 2025)
- Blockspace: Cipher Mining signs $3B AI hosting deal, Google backstops $1.4B
- TeraWulf: 200+ MW, 10-year AI hosting agreements with Fluidstack
- Traders Union: Big Tech expands AI financing guarantees to $300bn
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