Alphabet 10-Q Lists $924 Billion in Off-Balance-Sheet Purchase Commitments and $98.5 Billion in Contingent Obligations

Since Alphabet's Wednesday earnings call, where CFO Anat Ashkenazi put AI-related commitments above $1 trillion, the company's quarterly filing on Thursday, Oct. 29, has supplied the line items. They show where the money is promised, and where Alphabet could be asked to pay under conditions.

The $1 trillion, itemized

The largest piece is $924.4 billion in purchase commitments that do not appear on Alphabet's balance sheet, according to the filing. Of that, $802.1 billion covers multiyear deals for technical infrastructure and inventory, energy take-or-pay contracts and content licenses. Most will be fulfilled through 2031. About $213.4 billion comes due within 12 months.

Alphabet also lists $130.5 billion in leases that have not yet started, mainly for data centers and energy infrastructure. They begin between 2026 and 2031 and run from one to 26 years. Another $21.9 billion covers future funding for equity investments.

Added together, the three items total roughly $1.08 trillion. Bloomberg, which first reported the filing's details, put the lease figure at $152 billion, which matches the filing's lease and investment-funding lines combined.

For scale, Meta's filing last week showed about $825 billion in commitments.

Contingent exposure

Bloomberg counted about $98.5 billion in contingent commitments, up roughly $23 billion from the prior quarter. These are payments Alphabet could owe if certain things happen.

The notional value of Alphabet's backstops on partners' data center lease payments and energy costs, its maximum exposure if those partners default, was $48 billion at Sept. 30. At the end of 2025 it was $16.9 billion.

Guarantees tied to partners' purchases of power equipment for Google's energy deals reached $16.2 billion. Their terms now run as late as January 2049.

Some customers can also require Alphabet to buy back the TPU chip systems they purchased, at preset prices. The maximum Alphabet could pay is $6.6 billion. The company says customers have no economic incentive to use the option, given the discount on repurchase.

That is Alphabet's stated position, and the filing frames the buyback as a remote scenario. The $6.6 billion is a ceiling, not a forecast.

Backlog growth and a related party

Google Cloud's backlog of signed contracts rose to $560.8 billion at the end of September, from $513.9 billion three months earlier. That is an increase of about $46.9 billion.

Of the total, $16.8 billion comes from a multiyear agreement with Crux AI. The filing describes Crux AI as a related party. Alphabet formed the venture with Blackstone in May and holds a minority stake. Blackstone has committed up to $5 billion in capital. Alphabet has pledged up to $10 billion in data center and energy backstops for the venture's deals.

Bloomberg calculated that the Crux AI deal accounts for more than a third of the quarter's backlog growth. $16.8 billion is about 36% of $46.9 billion.

Alphabet has pointed to the backlog as evidence that cloud demand is growing quickly. Google Cloud revenue rose 103% year over year to $30.71 billion in the third quarter, according to reported results.

The business paying for it

The filing also shows slower growth in the engine that funds the build-out. Paid clicks on Google Search grew 8% in the third quarter, down from 13% in the second.

CEO Sundar Pichai said on the call that query growth was the fastest in five years. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said strong growth in AI Mode queries weighed on revenue because of "the lower monetization" of those queries. He said the company is optimistic and is expanding ads in AI Mode, including to international markets for the first time.

Third-quarter revenue was $127.58 billion, up 25% year over year, against a market expectation of $127.91 billion. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.67 against an expected $2.97. Free cash flow was a net outflow of $9.07 billion. Those expectations are analyst estimates, not company guidance.

Market reaction

Alphabet shares slumped Thursday. According to MSX.COM, the stock opened down 13%, a loss of nearly $490 billion in market value, before the decline narrowed to about 11.6%.

Wall Street closed lower as the revenue miss and rising AI spending revived questions about returns on the investment. The S&P 500 fell 0.31% to 7,721.02. The Nasdaq Composite lost 1.36% to 26,188.08. The Dow dropped 0.25% to 52,345.80.

Agents acting outside their scope

The risk-factor section includes language Bloomberg reported was a first for Alphabet. "During model testing, we have sometimes observed unexpected behavior, including autonomous agents taking actions outside of their intended scope," the filing says.

The filing warns that errors in AI systems could cause harm. It does not describe a specific incident.

What to watch

The open question is conversion. Alphabet has not said how much of the $560.8 billion backlog will become revenue or on what timeline. The same goes for how much of the $98.5 billion in contingent obligations could come due, and how much of the backlog depends on partners such as Crux AI, whose deals Alphabet has pledged up to $10 billion to backstop.