Meta Platforms has disclosed about $825 billion in future spending commitments, highlighting the scale of the infrastructure build-out accompanying the artificial intelligence boom and raising questions about how Big Tech will generate returns on its investments.

The commitments, reported by Bloomberg, include leases and contracts linked to data centres, energy infrastructure, third-party cloud computing capacity and consumer hardware for Meta’s Reality Labs division.

In a regulatory filing, Meta disclosed $355.7 billion in operating and finance leases that had not yet commenced and were therefore not included on its balance sheet. These leases cover data centres and energy infrastructure, with some scheduled to begin between the remainder of 2026 and 2036.

The company separately reported $454.5 billion in non-cancellable short- and long-term contracts as of September 30. Many relate to third-party cloud computing capacity, energy agreements for data centres and consumer hardware products for Reality Labs. Meta also disclosed an obligation to purchase up to $14.7 billion in cloud capacity over five years, although the amount could decline if the provider sells capacity to other customers.

The latest disclosure follows Meta’s report in July that it had nearly $700 billion in future spending commitments, underscoring the scale of its long-term infrastructure obligations.

The disclosure comes a day after Meta raised the lower end of its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $135 billion, from $130 billion previously, while retaining the upper end at $145 billion.

The company is investing heavily in computing capacity to develop and deploy AI models, improve its existing products and build new AI-powered services.

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