The Check Already Cleared

The AI argument everyone wants to have is about 2027. That is a fair fight. It is also the wrong place to start.

Groundbreaker laid out the spark: take-or-pay compute does not bill at signing. It bills at delivery. Construction is two to three years. A 2025 signing boom implies a 2027–28 commencement wall. We are not rewriting that piece. We are looking at the half of the story that already hit a cash-flow statement.

The check already cleared.

Dex pulled SEC companyfacts on August 24, 2026. Same concept across the group, one Amazon exception: PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment, except Amazon, which reports PaymentsToAcquireProductiveAssets. The periods are not the same. Microsoft and Oracle are full fiscal years. Amazon is one quarter plus a trailing twelve months with no prior TTM in the tag. Alphabet and Meta are first-half year-to-date. We are not annualizing any of it. Adding these five lines into one “this quarter they spent X” number would be a lie.

Microsoft (MSFT), fiscal 2026, 10-K filed July 29, 2026: $115.9 billion, against $64.6 billion a year earlier.

These are mixed windows (FY, Q, H1, TTM), not one quarterly series and not annualized.

Amazon (AMZN), second quarter 2026, 10-Q filed July 31, 2026: $54.2 billion in three months, against $32.2 billion in the year-ago quarter. Same filing, trailing twelve months: $173.0 billion. There is no prior TTM in that tag, so we do not invent one.

Alphabet (GOOGL), first half 2026, 10-Q filed July 23, 2026: $80.6 billion year-to-date, against $39.6 billion. No discrete second-quarter three-month figure in the pull.

Meta (META), first half 2026, 10-Q filed July 30, 2026: $49.1 billion year-to-date, against $29.5 billion. Same limit: no discrete Q2 three-month print.

Oracle (ORCL), fiscal 2026, 10-K filed June 22, 2026: $55.7 billion, against $21.2 billion.

Read those as they sit. Microsoft almost doubled a year that was already a build year. Oracle more than doubled, off a smaller base, and did it in a fiscal year that closed in May. Amazon spent $54.2 billion in a single quarter. Alphabet’s first half is already twice the first half it spent a year ago. Meta is not in that triple-digit club. It is still up from $29.5 billion to $49.1 billion in six months.

That is not backlog. That is cash out the door for property, plant, equipment, and, at Amazon, productive assets. Remaining performance obligations are a seller’s promise. This is a buyer’s check.

The market likes to treat that spend as proof of demand. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is a construction schedule that was signed when the last model still looked scarce. CapEx does not wait for utilization. Under GAAP, a lot of this sits in construction in progress until the campus is placed in service. Depreciation starts on a calendar the electrician keeps, not the one the equity story keeps.

We are not going to pretend OpenAI or Anthropic file a 10-K. They do not. We are not going to launder someone else’s private contract notional through this page. If you want the lab-side obligation, read Groundbreaker. If you want the public-side cash, it is above.

The useful split is simple.

One clock is contractual. Booked compute becomes billed compute when the campus is live. That clock is mostly still ahead of us.

The other clock is already running. These five companies have already paid for steel, power gear, and chips that are not yet a depreciation line. Microsoft’s fiscal 2026 CapEx is $115.9 billion. Oracle’s is $55.7 billion. Amazon’s last reported quarter is $54.2 billion. You can argue about who will use the capacity. You cannot argue that the money is still theoretical.

If the 2027 wall is real, this is what it looks like in public filings before anyone sends the take-or-pay invoice: a step-up you can see, in mixed windows, with no need to annualize your way to a headline.

If the wall is overstated, the same table still matters. These are not software costs. They do not flex down because a model ships late. They sit on the balance sheet until they hit the income statement, and then they hit it every quarter.

NVIDIA reports Wednesday. That print will be about the order book. This table is about the people who pay the invoices that become that order book. Watch both. Do not mix the periods. Do not add what cannot be added.

The teaser, if there is one you can audit, is not a press release. It is CapEx that has already cleared and has not yet been fully expensed.

Stay sharp.

— Stock Alarm