Can AI boom defy high rates? Off-balance-sheet commitments hit $4.11T

On 2026-11-02, Wall Street CN published a tally of off-balance-sheet commitments disclosed by the largest hyperscaler cloud providers and related AI infrastructure firms. Covering Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon, together with Nvidia, Broadcom and SpaceX, the report states that the total disclosed commitments reached $4.11 trillion, with close to $1 trillion added in roughly 90 days. The same piece says on-balance-sheet debt and lease liabilities for these companies stand at about $1 trillion, implying that every $1 of on-balance-sheet liability corresponds to more than $4 of commitments that never appear on the balance sheet. By contrast, the market value of Nasdaq-100 constituents fell by more than $1.2 trillion over the month. The article argues that the claim that AI's boom is unaffected by high interest rates is a classic late-bubble narrative, and frames the key open question as whether commercial AI revenue can catch up before the next wave of commitments comes due. It also notes that as high rates gradually bite into the AI sub-sector, the market is shifting from euphoria toward divergence, with capital allocation turning more cautious. The piece cites Ruchir Sharma, chairman of Rockefeller International, on the recurring claim that high rates 'don't matter.' No further developments are available in the provided material.