The spending is real. The payback is still a question.

1. Start with cash that actually left the company

These are whole-company cash flows for 1 January–30 June 2026, not AI-only accounts. “Property and equipment” means long-lived assets such as servers, buildings and other equipment. Outflows are shown as positive spending. Microsoft’s half-year is calculated from its June fiscal-year total minus the preceding July–December half.

The last line is a limited subtraction, not a universal definition of free cash flow. It excludes some cash uses, while operating leases and lease interest already affect cash from operations. A positive figure does not prove new AI projects pay back; a negative one does not establish insolvency.

2. A new lease is not this year’s lease payment

A lease can put equipment or a building on the balance sheet before the company pays most of the money. The initial asset entry and this period’s repayments answer different questions. Adding them together and calling the result “cash spent” counts the wrong things.

3. Even “free cash flow” needs a definition

Meta: $64,088m operating cash − $49,113m cash property/equipment purchases − $1,805m lease principal = $13,170m for January–June. That matches its own free-cash-flow reconciliation. Meta reconciliation

Amazon: it nets $2,101m of property-sale proceeds and incentives against $98,411m of gross purchases, giving $96,310m of net purchases. $71,419m operating cash − $96,310m = −$24,891m for January–June. Using gross purchases gives −$26,992m instead. Neither half-year figure should be substituted for Amazon’s separately reported trailing-twelve-month free cash flow. Amazon cash-flow definition

These definitions do not make one company dishonest and another prudent. They mean the reader must check what was subtracted, what was netted and which period is covered before comparing the headline.

4. A smaller capex headline can leave the buildout unchanged

Microsoft’s July earnings call lowered its calendar-2026 capital-spending outlook from $190 billion to $175 billion. Management attributed the change to extending the estimated accounting life of buildings and data centers from 15 to 25 years, effective in fiscal 2027. More prospective leases would then be classified as operating rather than finance leases. It said the underlying investment expectation was unchanged excluding that effect. July 29 call

That is not evidence of a $15 billion cash saving, a physical buildout cut or a 25-year GPU life. In the March quarter, management also explained why $31.9bn of reported capex, $4.7bn of finance leases and $30.9bn of cash equipment purchases did not add mechanically: receipt and payment timing differed. March-quarter timing explanation

5. Future commitments are a different ledger

A signed future lease is economically important even before the first payment. It is still not money already spent or a data center already serving customers. These disclosures have different scopes, start dates and terms; they are not added into a sector total.

Purchase commitments, lease payments, contingent maximums and spending already paid have different meanings. For example, Meta’s other non-cancellable commitments include third-party cloud and Reality Labs hardware, while some additional cloud exposure falls when other customers buy capacity. Those categories are not interchangeable “AI capex.” Meta commitment conditions

6. What has actually reached the grid?

The missing connection is not merely from a spending announcement to a building. It is from cash and obligations to usable capacity, then to enough paying use.

1. CommitPromise to buy or lease
2. BuildInstall assets
3. PowerConnect usable capacity
4. UseServe actual workloads
5. EarnRecover costs and capital

This is a checking sequence, not a claim that every project follows a simple linear schedule. Contracts, construction and grid work can overlap. A figure that establishes one stage does not automatically establish the next.

Alphabet reported $122.814bn of assets not yet in service at June 30, versus $78.592bn at December 31. Meta reported $80.345bn of construction in progress, versus $50.521bn. These are unfinished asset stocks, not extra cash to add to spending and not proof of idle, completed AI capacity. Alphabet PP&E note; Meta PP&E note

Microsoft says it added 1 GW of capacity and 31 data centers in its June quarter. That is issuer-reported delivery evidence. The inspected materials do not tie it to individual cash-investment cohorts, the share used for AI, or the share occupied by paying work. Microsoft capacity statement

There is also independent evidence that substantial data-center load is already active. PJM reported that approximately 3,800 MW shifted from its grid to backup generation on July 22 after a fault. It reported no significant system reliability impact and continued investigating the event. That is observed electrical demand—not a forecast—but it is not attributed here to these four companies, to AI alone or to profitable use. PJM event account

Delivery is not automatic. Texas ordered a data-center interconnection audit on August 3. EIA’s September 9 outlook reduced its 2027 West South Central electricity-sales forecast to 790 billion kWh from 829 billion kWh in the prior forecast. The region and forecast must not be turned into a measured national AI-demand collapse. PJM’s September ride-through requirements remained proposals, not an enacted guarantee of reliability. Texas directive; EIA September forecast; PJM follow-up

7. A payment check changes the first baseline

The first baseline left Amazon’s announced OpenAI funding unverified. Amazon’s June-quarter filing supplies a stronger record: $15bn invested in the first quarter, $13.7bn in the second and $21.3bn after June 30. That is $28.7bn through June and the full $50bn reported invested by the July 30 filing. The exact date of the final payment and recipient-side bank receipts were not reviewed. Amazon Note 2

This updates our knowledge, not the date of the event. The July disclosure was already available when the first baseline was researched; relying on the February announcement left an avoidable gap. The historical report remains unchanged, and the current assessment and collection carry this correction. The separate AWS purchase commitment is not investment proceeds or revenue already earned. Historical baseline

What does this change about the bubble question?

What is still missing?

A consistent project-by-project link between cash invested, equipment delivered, grid power and retained paid use; AI-only revenue and cash margins; economic replacement lives; and complete financing protections. Alphabet’s new TPU systems sales also mean cloud revenue is not a clean measure of hosted computing use. TPU revenue discussion

The next financial investigation starts from verified funding events and their conditions, not a fresh sum of announcements. Exact Microsoft half-year lease flows, Meta’s missing noncash-addition flow and the classification of Alphabet lease prepayments remain identified data gaps. No security-level valuation, crash timing or international conclusion is offered.

Inspect or reuse the record

Inspect the complete definitions, numbers and source URLs (JSON) · Open the matched cash table (CSV). These are direct files; use the browser’s save function to keep a copy. Unknown values are null or empty, never zero.

How we check explains the evidence standard. Spending & promises keeps the current comparison separate from this dated research record.