By Patturaja Murugaboopathy

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp ( MSFT ), Meta Platforms

Inc ( META ), Oracle Corp ( ORCL ), Amazon ( AMZN ) and Alphabet

have committed about $1.09 trillion in future payments

under leases that have not yet begun, mostly for data centres

needed to power the artificial intelligence boom.

The commitments show that a substantial part of Big Tech's

AI spending spree has already been locked in, without yet

appearing as debt-like lease liabilities on company balance

sheets.

If demand for AI computing continues to surge, the

facilities will underpin the next phase of cloud growth. If it

does not, the companies could be left paying for vast amounts of

costly, long-lived capacity that is difficult to shed.

The total is nearly four times the roughly $285 billion of

lease liabilities already recognised on the companies' balance

sheets, according to company filings compiled by Reuters.

The gap reflects accounting treatment. Signed leases

generally are not recorded as liabilities until a facility is

available for use. Until then, companies disclose the future

payments in notes to their financial statements.

The commitments are not hidden, and rating agencies may

already account for some of them. But their scale reveals how

much of the AI buildout has yet to enter reported lease

liabilities, fixed charges and reported leverage measures.

The $1.09 trillion cannot simply be added to debt.

Uncommenced lease commitments are generally undiscounted

payments spread over many years, whereas recognised lease

liabilities reflect their present value.

Oracle has the largest apparent concentration risk. It

disclosed $260 billion of uncommenced commitments, nearly seven

times its $37.89 billion of recognised lease liabilities. The

commitments are substantially for data centres, expected to

begin between fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2029, and generally run for

15 to 19 years.

Oracle has warned that the duration, renewal terms and

pricing of its data-centre leases may not align with customer

contracts, leaving it exposed if customers do not renew or

cannot perform.

Its borrowings equalled about 4.4 times trailing EBITDA at

the end of May, according to a Reuters analysis of LSEG data and

company filings. Including recognised operating and finance

lease liabilities lifted that ratio to about 5.7 times.

S&P Global Ratings said it incorporated Oracle's $260

billion of uncommenced leases into its adjusted-debt forecast

and expected leverage to be around 4.4 in fiscal 2027.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) had the largest disclosed pipeline, at $329.1

billion, against $88.52 billion of recognised lease liabilities.

Meta disclosed $278.99 billion of uncommenced operating and

finance lease payments, then signed a further $68 billion of

data-centre leases in July, lifting the five companies' known

pipeline to about $1.16 trillion, including those later

agreements.

Alphabet reported $85.2 billion of uncommenced leases, while

Amazon ( AMZN ) disclosed $137.21 billion. Amazon's ( AMZN ) figure is less

directly comparable because its lease portfolio also includes

warehouses, offices, aircraft and vehicles.