“There is basically no end in sight for the growth in capex,” RBC Capital analyst Rishi Jaluria told the publication. “Investors need these companies to toe the tight line between investing in AI and not compromising the things that have made them successful.” This massive investment has upended several other industries — namely electricity prices and memory and storage chips. The massive power demand that data centers have put on the power grid has forced many U.S. utility companies to spend billions of dollars to upgrade their respective infrastructure, which they then passed on to all consumers , not just the big ones that forced the upgrade.
This, alongside other environmental issues, has caused many Americans to push back against data center projects near their communities. The White House instituted the “ ratepayer protection pledge ” and made AI hyperscalers, utility operators, data center companies, and individual states promise that they will protect the average consumer from electricity cost increases. But so far, no state has taken a step to codify this pledge into law. Oregon actually enacted the POWER Act , which resulted in a 30% increase in the power bill of users that consumed more than 20MW while slashing the bills of residents by 1.3%, but the state did this in 2025, way before President Donald Trump called the tech giants into the White House and told them to “pay their own way.”
The mountains of cash that these tech giants are pouring into AI are also affecting the memory and storage chip industry. Since these AI hyperscalers have a lot of liquidity from investors, they are willing to pay top dollar for the HBM they need to run their data centers. Because of this, it made sense for Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix to prioritize them over DRAM, especially as they can charge a premium for these chips and there are customers who are willing to pay at those prices. This resulted in a shortage of consumer memory that started in 2025 — while this initially affected PC builders and enthusiasts, it has started to affect other industries that require memory as well, including cars and smartphones . Even Apple, which historically had huge sway over its suppliers, was forced to increase prices because of the shortages.
Aside from skewing other industries, the massive CAPEX the big four are going into is alarming some experts, warning that the promises and contracts they’re making are leading to “hidden debt” not listed in their balance sheets . The amount, worth around $1.65 trillion, is annotated in their quarterly financial statements as future obligations that will only come into play as the related asset or service comes online. The current value is 122% of the actual debt reflected on their balance sheets, which could give investors the wrong impression that they have fewer obligations than they actually have.
AI tech companies have ‘hidden debt’ worth around $1.65 trillion, report claims
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/big-tech-spends-more-than-usd1-trillion-on-ai-infrastructure-additional-usd745-billion-expected-to-be-added-to-the-figure-in-2026-alone#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.