Big Tech’s Off-Balance-Sheet AI Financing Risks, Explained
Published by AINave Editorial • Reviewed by Ramit
Big Tech’s AI infrastructure boom is increasingly backed by guarantees, not just direct corporate borrowing. A Financial Times analysis cited in a September 25, 2026 report put guarantees tied to AI data centers and chips at as much as $300 billion over the preceding year. That figure measures guarantees, not losses or conventional debt already recorded on company balance sheets.
The scale looks different under a broader measure: Morgan Stanley analysts estimated that seven major cloud and semiconductor companies had accumulated more than $3.1 trillion in off-balance-sheet commitments and other forms of credit support. Those figures should not be added together or treated as equivalent. The distinction matters: a guarantee can create real exposure without being the same thing as borrowing the full amount directly.
How the guarantees shift financing
In a common structure, a special-purpose vehicle owns the chips or data center and borrows to finance them. A technology company backs that debt with a guarantee or other support, so the full obligation does not immediately appear as conventional debt on its own balance sheet.
A residual-value guarantee specifically promises that an asset will retain a minimum future value. If the chips or infrastructure later sell or lease for less, the guarantor could owe some of the shortfall. That protection can make lenders more willing to finance equipment whose value might fall as technology advances.
The arrangement moves some risk away from the lender, but does not make it disappear. The company’s exposure can become more consequential if computing demand disappoints, data-center capacity outstrips customer needs, or newer chips make existing hardware obsolete faster than expected.
The reported deals are not all the same
Reported examples show different kinds of support, so their figures should not be compared as if they were identical liabilities.
| Company or project | Reported amount or support | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcom and Anthropic | Roughly $29 billion | Broadcom exposure in a deal involving chips to be leased to Anthropic. Broadcom told investors it believed the guarantees were unlikely to be triggered. |
| Nvidia financing deals | Up to 25% | Residual-value support Nvidia said it could provide for certain deals being assembled with investment firms. |
| Nvidia and SB Energy | Roughly $105 billion | Guarantees tied to an Ohio data-center campus being developed for OpenAI by SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy. |
| Meta and Hyperion | Roughly $28 billion | A guarantee supporting Meta’s data-center joint venture with Blue Owl in Louisiana. |
These examples describe reported exposure or potential support, not confirmed payouts. Nvidia’s separate financing effort involved investment firms seeking to mobilize more than $500 billion for Nvidia-powered AI projects, a target for financing, not a statement that Nvidia guaranteed that whole amount.
What changes the risk calculation
S&P Global Ratings has warned that special-purpose vehicles, vendor financing, backstop agreements, and residual-value guarantees can increase debt-like exposure and obscure risk. Its analysts may account for the difference between an asset’s guaranteed value and what it could fetch in a distressed sale when adjusting leverage. In the largest gap described in the report, that difference was about 25%, or roughly $5 billion on a $20 billion financing structure.
Rating agencies generally believe the assets retain enough value to cover much of the financing so far. The bigger test is whether the infrastructure generates the revenue companies expect. If it does not, balance-sheet debt alone may give an incomplete view of the commitments supporting the buildout.
