Meta Has Signed Up for $825 Billion in AI Leases and Contracts, and the Tab Keeps Growing

Meta's latest quarterly filing reads like the construction ledger of a small nation. In its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, filed with the SEC on Thursday, October 22, Meta Platforms disclosed $355.73 billion in operating and finance leases that have not yet started and $454.52 billion in non-cancelable contractual commitments. Add a separate contingent obligation to buy up to $14.72 billion of cloud capacity and the total comes to $824.97 billion by our own arithmetic, the roughly $825 billion figure Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

We have already looked at how Meta plans to raise fresh money for its AI bet, and at the wider investor unease over who pays for the AI boom. This is the other side of that ledger. It shows what the money is already promised to.

Start with the leases. Meta says the $355.73 billion consists of "data centers, energy-related infrastructure, colocations, and certain network infrastructure," with leases that "will commence during the remainder of 2026 through 2036" and run for terms of more than one year up to 30 years. Because none of them has commenced, none of it sits in the lease liabilities on Meta's balance sheet yet. Three months earlier, in its June quarter 10-Q, the same line stood at $278.99 billion, and the description did not mention energy infrastructure at all. That filing also flagged roughly $68 billion of extra data center leases signed in July, which accounts for most of the $76.74 billion jump, again by our math.

The contracts are where the bill gets sharper. Meta says the $454.52 billion "mostly relate to third-party cloud capacity arrangements and investments in servers and network infrastructure, energy service agreements for data centers, and consumer hardware products in Reality Labs." About $45.85 billion falls due in the final months of 2026 and $121.41 billion in 2027. At the end of June, the company reported $349.31 billion of such commitments, with $81.65 billion due in 2027. So in a single quarter Meta added about $105 billion of contracts it cannot cancel, and its 2027 tab grew by nearly half. And Meta's risk factors make clear it is not done:

"we continue to enter into additional significant contractual arrangements." Meta Platforms, Form 10-Q

For scale, the filing puts Meta's cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at $82.45 billion on September 30, after $85.82 billion of capital expenditures in the first nine months of the year. Meta now expects 2026 capital spending of $135 billion to $145 billion. The 2027 contract payments alone approach a full year of that building spree.

Some of the money is already off the table. Meta moved $10.80 billion of money market funds into restricted cash to meet escrow requirements under "certain multi-year infrastructure purchase agreements." The company says those funds are barred from general corporate use and should be released between 2028 and 2030, once it satisfies the underlying purchase obligations.

The escape hatch has a price

Then there are the two data center joint ventures, in Louisiana and Texas, in which Meta holds 20% stakes. Meta says the parties committed to fund their shares of roughly $27 billion and $14 billion in estimated development costs, and that the ventures give it "strategic optionality and flexibility." Meta leases the campuses back starting in 2029 in Louisiana and 2028 in Texas, on four-year initial terms renewable up to 20 years.

That flexibility is not free. If Meta walks away and the property is worth less than an agreed threshold, it covers the shortfall through residual value guarantees. The maximum on those guarantees reached $41.49 billion on September 30, up from $28.09 billion at the end of 2025, and Meta puts its total maximum exposure to the two ventures at $68.40 billion. The company says such payments "are not probable," so it has booked no liability.

Bloomberg reported that Meta's future commitments stood at almost $700 billion in July. Every quarter, the number climbs and the payment dates get closer. Meta is betting that AI demand will fill every rack it has signed for. The filing shows how little room it has left to change its mind.