Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Economic Times
The Economic Times

Meta, Microsoft lead $850 billion boom in data center leases

Meta Platforms and Microsoft each committed tens of billions of dollars in additional data center leases in their most recent quarters, adding to the massive sums the industry is spending on artificial intelligence.

Those pledges helped push overall commitments to future data center leases to more than $850 billion among the largest cloud computing companies. These obligations have continued to climb over the last year as tech giants work to expand their fleet of server farms, according to a Bloomberg analysis of regulatory filings.

The future costs, which come on top of active leases, won’t appear on companies’ balance sheets until they begin making payments on them. They’re generally tied to data centers, but can also include facilities such as offices or warehouses. Some leases contain clauses that let companies escape future obligations under certain conditions.

By far the biggest spender in the quarter was Meta. The social media giant added $79 billion in new commitments — a 76% increase over the prior period, bringing the total to $182.9 billion as of March 31. Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has said his company will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure by the end of the decade.

Microsoft was the runner-up, adding more than $41 billion in commitments to $196.6 billion. The software giant continues to be held back by a lack of data center capacity after taking a pause on its leasing activity through much of 2025. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a massive server farm project in west Texas in partnership with Chevron Corp.

Meta and Microsoft declined to comment.

By contrast, Oracle's future-dated leases slightly declined from the prior quarter. But the company had already signed leases for many of the large sites needed for a massive contract with OpenAI, and it still leads in future spending commitments.

Amazon added $10 billion in lease commitments in the quarter, less than half the amount signed in the prior period. CoreWeave Inc.’s future commitments have largely been flat over the last two quarters.

The overall pool of $850 billion in future lease commitments will largely be paid out over the next two decades, pointing to steady continued spending on data center inputs such as semiconductors and energy.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.