Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft reported a combined $1,828.7 billion of signed revenue not yet recognised at 30 September 2026, by our arithmetic from their latest 10-Q filings. A year earlier the same three figures added up to $755.7 billion.
That is $1,073.0 billion more in twelve months, or 2.42 times the year-earlier total, by our arithmetic. Over the same quarter the five biggest AI builders spent more cash than they generated.
Short explainer · Cloud backlog hits $1.83T
A vertical news Short summarising this story. Figures come from the Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft 10-Qs; our arithmetic is labelled.
Business Pill · Lead Time
A short explainer on lead time: why the wait is part of the price. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about these companies.
The key insight: As we read the filings, the three big clouds are booking demand years ahead of delivery: their combined backlog grew by $1,073.0 billion in a year, by our arithmetic, while the free cash flow of the biggest builders turned negative in the same quarter.
Amazon’s 10-Q says commitments in contracts with original terms over one year, “primarily related to AWS”, were “approximately $ 578 billion as of September 30, 2026”. Its earlier filings gave about $200 billion a year before.
Alphabet’s 10-Q says it had “$ 567.7 billion of remaining performance obligations”, of which “$ 560.8 billion related to Google Cloud”. Its filing a year earlier gave $157.7 billion.
Microsoft’s 10-Q puts its remaining performance obligations at “$ 683 billion as of September 30, 2026”, against $398 billion a year earlier. That is the whole company, not only its cloud; the commercial portion is $677 billion.
Remaining performance obligations of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet at 30 September 2025 and 30 September 2026, in $ billion, as stated in each 10-Q (Amazon: contracts with original terms over one year, primarily AWS; Microsoft: total company). The totals, the 2.42x ratio and the -$31.8 billion free cash flow figure are our arithmetic.
When the Money Arrives
The filings point to long contracts. Amazon says the weighted-average remaining life of its long-term contracts is 6.1 years. Alphabet expects “just over 55 % of the revenue backlog” to turn into revenue over the next 24 months.
Microsoft expects to recognise about 30% of its remaining performance obligations over the next 12 months. Its commercial contracts have a weighted average duration of about 2.3 years, the filing says.
Two AI Labs Sit Inside Amazon’s Number
Amazon’s filing names two deals. It says AWS and OpenAI expanded an existing $38.0 billion commitment “by $ 100.0 billion over 8.0 years”, and that AWS and Anthropic expanded theirs “by more than $ 100.0 billion over 10.0 years”.
Together that is more than $238 billion of announced multi-year commitments, by our arithmetic. The filing does not say how much of the $578 billion backlog they account for, so we do not give a share.
Backlog Up, Cash Down
Backlog is future revenue, while capex is cash out of the door now. In the same quarter the free cash flow of Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle came to minus $31.8 billion, by our arithmetic in our piece on the cash swing. ZeroHedge framed the same tension on 31 October with the headline “$1.1 Trillion In Cloud Backlog Vs “Peak” Earnings Growth”.
Oracle reports on a different calendar. Its remaining performance obligations were $664.0 billion at 31 August 2026, against $455.3 billion a year earlier, its filings show. Adding Oracle at those dates takes the four-company total to $2,492.7 billion, by our arithmetic.
The Business Lever: Contracts Signed Before the Capacity Exists
Customers, including AI labs, are signing multi-year compute contracts years before the capacity is fully built. The clouds book the commitment now and fund the build-out from cash, bonds and leases in the meantime. That gap between signed revenue and spent cash is what the credit market started pricing this week, as we argued in our piece on the rating gap.
The Structural Read
As we read the filings, Microsoft still carries the largest backlog at $683 billion, but Amazon and Alphabet grew theirs faster: Amazon’s rose from about $200 billion to about $578 billion and Alphabet’s from $157.7 billion to $567.7 billion.
As we read Amazon’s filing, part of its backlog is tied to two AI labs: it lists an expanded OpenAI commitment of $38.0 billion plus $100.0 billion over 8.0 years and an Anthropic expansion of more than $100.0 billion over 10.0 years.
As we read the timing disclosures, much of this revenue lands after the capex: Microsoft expects about 30% within 12 months, Alphabet just over 55% within 24 months, and Amazon gives a 6.1-year weighted-average remaining life.
Alphabet, 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026
“Revenue backlog represents commitments in customer contracts that have not yet been recognized as revenue”
Three Implications
FOR INVESTORS WATCHING CASH The combined backlog was $1,828.7 billion at 30 September, by our arithmetic, while the five biggest builders’ free cash flow was minus $31.8 billion in the same quarter.
FOR THE AI LABS Amazon’s filing names OpenAI and Anthropic among its multi-year commitments, together more than $238 billion of announced deals, by our arithmetic.
FOR READING THE NUMBERS Each company defines backlog differently, so the total is a sum of three disclosures, not one audited figure.
The framework frames its subject as “How the money flows, where it cracks, what it buys, who can absorb it, and what happens when revenue can’t catch up.”
As we read it, the clouds’ backlog is the revenue side of that question: signed contracts that have to catch up with spending already made. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss these filings.
The three companies define backlog differently. Microsoft’s figure covers the whole company, Amazon’s covers contracts longer than a year and Alphabet’s includes non-cloud items. The totals are not audited sums, and we did not adjust for those differences. We read only the headline of ZeroHedge’s article, and its $1.1 trillion figure may use another method.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Anthropic’s Reality Check, The Capital Squeeze, & The New World Order
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a growthstory. This week it started being priced as a credit story.
Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft reported $1,828.7 billion of signed future revenue at the end of September, 2.42 times a year earlier by our arithmetic, while the biggest builders’ free cash flow turned negative.
95,000+ executives read Business Engineer for the AI strategy frameworks cited by ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
A note on sourcing. Figures come from the 10-Q filings of Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, their year-earlier filings via SEC XBRL, and Oracle’s filings for its fiscal quarters ended 31 August. Totals and ratios are our arithmetic and do not adjust for different definitions. We did not contact the companies.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
