The Zhitong Finance App learned that the five largest participants in the data center competition have pledged to spend more than 3 trillion US dollars over the next few years, indicating that AI infrastructure is still continuing to invest on a large scale. Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Meta Platforms (META.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), and Oracle (ORCL.US) each revealed rapidly expanding commitments in leasing, construction, energy, and other equipment as they compete to build large-scale data center clusters. There are both short-term parts of these expenses as well as promises that last for decades.
The largest of these promises came from Google, which declared more than $1 trillion in commitments covering technology, equipment, energy, and leasing. According to the company's regulatory filings, this figure is nearly eight times higher than a year ago.
Meta also reported a steep rise, disclosing future spending of more than $800 billion. Slightly less than half of these are data center leases that have yet to be leased and will be paid over a period of up to 30 years. “We expect to continue to invest heavily to support both our core business and emerging AI initiatives,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Li (Susan Li) said on a conference call with analysts last week.
One of the biggest debates in the business community this year is whether the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI computing server farms will actually pay off. Some of the most profitable businesses in history — such as Alphabet and Meta — have fallen into negative free cash flow, citing the need to invest in a transformative new line of business.
Not all expenses are strictly tied to data centers, and companies disclose their promises slightly differently, making it difficult to directly compare them. For example, Meta indicated that part of its planned spending relates to the Reality Labs division's consumer hardware products; Alphabet and Amazon each indicated planned spending on content licensing. Additionally, there are some large spending pools — such as current leases and debts — that are not included in this statistic.
Taken together, future leasing commitments totaled $1.3 trillion, and other procurement commitments amounted to $1.9 trillion. All figures are from each company's latest financial reports, with the exception of Microsoft — its most recent disclosure of procurement and construction orders was in its annual report up to the end of June.
Oracle was the first major company to experience negative free cash flow due to AI data center investments. At an investor briefing earlier this week, the company gave a path to returning free cash flow to positive in 2028. To achieve this, it will use supplier financing and customer advances in part to reduce upfront costs.