AI Companies Are Trying to Hide a Staggering Amount of Debt
▻https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-hide-debt-off-balance-sheet
#AI companies are pouring untold billions of dollars into enormous #datacenters in their efforts to sustain increasingly complex and resource-intensive AI models.
It’s an extremely costly undertaking built on seemingly bottomless hype — and a mountain of #debt. As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants — #Alphabet, #Microsoft, #Amazon, #Meta, and #Oracle — are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. That’s even more than the $1.35 trillion in debt the five companies officially reported in their financial data for the most recent quarter.
Meta alone has amassed around $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt, according to Nikkei, highlighting how precarious the AI industry’s steep investment in AI has become, and inspiring comparisons to energy company Enron, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2001 because of similar debts hidden behind shell companies. Like Enron, they’re using special purpose vehicles, or off-balance sheet arrangements such as legally distinct subsidiaries, as a way to make their financial reporting look healthier than it actually is — often a glaring sign that something is deeply amiss behind the scenes.