Hyperscalers — Sold Out, Selling Stock: Funding the Wait Binds

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Hyperscalers are the giant cloud buyers: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle, with Alibaba the largest in China. They pay for chips, data halls and power, then sell computing back as cloud services, or in Meta's case spend ads cash on halls for ranking and training. This Stack layer tracks who gets paid in that spend, and which step is holding the cash.

Company models: Amazon · Microsoft · Google · Meta · Oracle · Alibaba · Models: How hyperscalers buy power

Status: Tightening · Updated: 2026-10-27

Investor read: On 23 October this page said the buyers had paid before power and that energisation binds. Since then two things happened that show the bind is now a funding problem as well as a power problem. On 23 October Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy said AWS is sold out for 2026, largely sold out for 2027 and has sold "a good chunk" of 2028, even with about $220 billion of capital spending this year. Demand is not the limit. Then on 26 October Meta, whose third-quarter capex had already outrun its operating cash, launched about $35 billion of new stock and said it plans a further $60 billion share programme once its non-voting Class C shares trade. The same day SpaceX disclosed a $40 billion lease of GPUs from an Apollo-managed lender, with rent starting on delivery in 2027. The halls are sold before they are built, and the cash to carry them until handover now comes from outside. Sold out, selling stock. Funding the wait binds.

On this page

• Numbers that matter
• What this layer does / who gets paid
• Stuck step
• Role companies
• What limits it
• Cross-links
• Practical takeaways
• FAQ
• How we check
• What would change the view
• References

Numbers that matter

Read the table in three blocks. The first seven rows are Meta: the money it is raising, when that money actually arrives, and the bill it is meant to cover. The next four are the demand and the long clocks: AWS sold years ahead, SpaceX leasing GPUs it will not receive until 2027, and Microsoft campuses dated 2029. The last two are our ratios and the results that test them this week.

What this layer does / who gets paid

A hyperscaler's AI spend turns into cloud or ads-backed revenue in this order:

1. Sell ahead — the cloud buyer signs customers to multi-year capacity and books it as backlog (see remaining performance obligations and reserved vs on-demand GPUs).
2. Commit — it signs leases, chip orders and power deals, most of them off the balance sheet until they start (see data center leases and finance lease vs operating lease).
3. Fund the wait — it pays for kit and grid work from operating cash, then bonds, leases and now new stock (see AI capex, cash capex and data center financing). This is today's stuck step.
4. Handover and energise — the landlord hands over a powered hall, the lease starts and the racks run (see how long it takes to build an AI data center and how hyperscalers buy power).
5. Bill — cloud revenue starts hall by hall, or Meta's ads engine runs on the new capacity, while depreciation starts too (see capex vs depreciation and which capex lines to watch this earnings season).

This layer sits downstream of Semiconductors, which makes the chips, and beside Neoclouds, which rent GPUs out. Halls, megawatts and landlords live in AI Data Centers. Capex, backlog, the buyer's own funding and the grid work it pays for stay here.

Who gets paid first right now: the banks that run the books, paid fees at launch; chip sellers, paid on delivery; and lenders and equipment lessors, whose rent on leased GPUs starts the day the kit arrives. Next: the utilities and builders whose plants and lines the buyers fund directly. Who waits: the cloud buyer itself, whose revenue starts only at handover; landlords on Meta's $355.73 billion of leases that have not started; and AWS customers who arrive late, now that the big blocks of 2027 are taken. Who pays: existing shareholders, through dilution from forwards, conversions and any share programme, and bondholders, as more of the bill moves onto borrowed or raised money.

Stuck step

On 19 October this page put the stuck step at the utility's commercial operation date. On 23 October it moved one step closer to the buyer: energisation, with racks and grid work paid for before halls could use them. Both clocks still stand. This week showed the consequence. If demand is sold years ahead and power arrives years late, someone has to carry the cash in between. The buyers have started raising it from outside.

1. Meta sells stock to pay for the wait — PRIMARY (new 2026-10-27). On 26 October Meta launched about $35 billion of public offerings: $22.5 billion of Class A shares sold through forward agreements with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and about $12.5 billion of mandatory convertible preferred. It also said it plans an at-the-market programme of up to $60 billion in its new non-voting Class C shares, not expected before the first quarter of 2027 and not yet agreed. The timing is the point. Meta does not expect to receive cash from the common at closing; it gets it when it settles the forwards, on dates it chooses up to 19 November 2027. The preferred pays at closing and converts into shares around 15 August 2029. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, which sell Meta chips, indicated interest in buying up to $5.0 billion of the common, though that is not binding. Meta says it will fund its build through operating cash, investment-grade debt, partnerships and equity. On our arithmetic the $35 billion equals about 25% of the $140 billion midpoint of its 2026 capex range, and the full $95 billion about 68%. See the Wire on Meta's $35B of equity and what Meta does.

2. The bill the stock is meant to carry — SECOND PRINT. Meta's third-quarter filing on 22 October lists $355.73 billion of leases signed but not yet started, running from late 2026 to 2036 and covering data centres, energy-related infrastructure, colocation and network space. It also lists $454.52 billion of non-cancelable commitments, mostly third-party cloud capacity, servers and network gear, and energy service agreements, with $121.41 billion due in 2027. Another $10.80 billion of money-market funds sits in escrow under multi-year infrastructure purchase agreements until 2028 to 2030. The quarter's cash shows why outside money is needed: capex of $34.91 billion against operating cash of $32.79 billion. On our arithmetic, nine-month capex including finance-lease principal was $85.82 billion, so the 2026 guide leaves $49–59 billion for the fourth quarter, $16–26 billion more than the third quarter's operating cash. The 2027 commitments alone are about 3.5 times the $35 billion now being raised. See the Wire on Meta's $356B of unstarted leases and the US Markets note on Meta's Q3.

3. Demand is sold years ahead — THIRD PRINT. On the a16z podcast released on 23 October, Andy Jassy said AWS is sold out for 2026, keeps some capacity back for on-demand EC2 and its Bedrock inference service, but that 2027 is largely sold out and "a good chunk" of 2028 is sold. He said Amazon could spend a lot more than this year's roughly $220 billion and still not meet demand, and that supply limits will show up in different components for several years, memory among them. That is a podcast answer, not a filing, and it gives no new backlog number. It matters for this layer because it removes demand as the excuse. If the capacity is already sold, the constraint is how fast the buyer can build, power and pay for it. On our arithmetic $220 billion a year is about $600 million a day. See the Wire on AWS sold out into 2028, what Amazon does and provisioned throughput explained.

4. Lessors carry the GPUs until delivery — FOURTH PRINT. On 24 October SpaceX, which is building AI compute of its own, signed a binding commitment for a master finance lease with an entity managed by Apollo, disclosed on 26 October. The lessor buys the GPU pods and related equipment and leases them to SpaceX in tranches, each for about five to five and a quarter years. Rent is paid quarterly in advance: one-twentieth of the tranche's cost plus a fixed rate that is not yet set. Principal across the schedules totals about $40 billion, the deal is expected to close before year-end, and the schedules start in the first half of 2027 as the GPUs arrive. On our arithmetic that is about $2 billion of principal a quarter once all tranches run. It is the same structure Oracle was reported in early October to be discussing: someone else owns the kit during the wait, and the buyer pays from delivery. See the Wire on SpaceX's $40B GPU lease, what Oracle does and Analysis: if a GPU licence lands before the bill is funded.

5. The long clocks the money must cover — FIFTH PRINT. Microsoft's own dates show how long the wait runs. Its $1 billion complex in La Porte, Indiana, served under the 20-year NiSource agreement that adds about 1,100 MW from 2028, expects its first two buildings by spring 2029 and its third by winter 2029, local business press reported on 26 October. The same day Data Center Dynamics reported Microsoft had bought another 37 acres in Licking County, Ohio, for about $6.65 million, taking its holdings there above 700 acres; its Heath, Hebron and New Albany campuses aim to be online by 2029. Land bought this month earns from 2029 at the earliest. See the NiSource × Microsoft Wire, what Microsoft does and Analysis: NiSource and the named-plant stuck step.

6. Power is still paid for in advance. The power side keeps asking for cash before delivery too. On 21 October Liberty Energy said a frontier AI lab and an infrastructure partner had signed a 1.2 GW power development agreement with a significant prepayment of capacity fees, before the first 500 MW contract is even signed. Energisation is phased from the fourth quarter of 2027 to the first quarter of 2029. Another bill paid before a hall earns. See the Wire on the 1.2 GW Liberty prepayment and Analysis on $1.1 trillion of leases waiting on handover.

So the stuck step, named plainly: funding the wait. Capacity is sold years ahead, power and handover run to 2029 and beyond, and the cash to carry the gap no longer comes from operations alone. Meta is selling stock, SpaceX is leasing its GPUs, and the bill due in 2027 is still larger than the money raised. Sold out, selling stock. Funding the wait binds.

Role companies

Roles only — not a leaderboard, not a buy list.

Always verify listing, ADR, and tax treatment for your own jurisdiction. Names here map roles. They are not recommendations.

What limits it

1. Operating cash — Meta's third-quarter capex outran its operating cash, and the fourth quarter has more to spend.
2. Settlement dates — Meta's common brings cash only when the forwards settle, up to 19 November 2027; the share programme waits for Class C to trade.
3. Delivery dates — leased GPUs pay rent only from delivery; SpaceX's schedules start in the first half of 2027.
4. Handover — $355.73 billion of Meta's leases start only when each hall is finished, powered and handed over, through 2036.
5. Power — Microsoft's La Porte and Ohio campuses aim for 2029; Liberty's 1.2 GW energises from late 2027 to early 2029.
6. Supply — AWS says constraints in memory and other parts last several years, so even funded capacity arrives in steps.

Cross-links

Explained

• Who are the hyperscalers?
• What is a hyperscaler?
• Neocloud vs hyperscaler
• Who buys AI GPUs?
• What is AI capex?
• Which hyperscaler capex lines to watch?
• Cash capex explained
• Capex vs opex
• Capex vs depreciation
• Finance lease vs operating lease
• Remaining performance obligations
• Reserved vs on-demand GPUs
• What is provisioned throughput?
• Data center leases explained
• Data center financing explained
• What is a GPU cluster?
• What is an AI data center?
• How long does it take to build an AI data center?
• How much does it cost to build an AI data center?
• Hyperscale vs colocation data centers
• AI training vs inference
• What is a TPU?

Company models

• What Does Amazon Do?
• What Does Microsoft Do?
• What Does Google Do? The TPU conversion model
• What Does Meta Do? The ads-funded hall model
• What Does Oracle Do?
• What Does Alibaba Do? The China cloud conversion model
• How Do Hyperscalers Buy Power? The PPA and own-plant model

Wire, Catalyst & Analysis

• Wire: Meta launches $35B of equity, with a $60B ATM behind it
• Wire: Meta's unstarted data center leases jump $77B to $356B
• Wire: Amazon says AWS is sold out into 2028 despite $220B of capex
• Wire: SpaceX takes a $40B Apollo lease on GPUs due in 2027
• Wire: AI lab prepays Liberty for 1.2 GW of data center power
• Wire: Amazon takes $3B a month of Nvidia racks it can't yet power
• Wire: NiSource signs Microsoft to 1,100 MW of Indiana data-center power
• Catalyst: Google picks up 440 MW of solar Arkansas regulators rejected
• Catalyst: Microsoft drops 23,000-GPU Essex site as UK power slips to 2030s
• Analysis: If a GPU licence lands before the bill is funded, where does cash stick?
• Analysis: If $1.1 trillion of signed leases waits on handover, where does cash stick?
• Analysis: If cash books the finish before the line is live, where does cash stick?
• Analysis: What does NiSource's price assume about the named-plant stuck step?
• Analysis: Oracle and the power stuck step
• Analysis: Where does the stuck step move

Markets

• US: Capex outran cash — who gets paid while Meta's halls stay dark
• US: 299 MW of 3,000 — Virginia's $100B campus waits for power
• US: 1,100 MW signed — Microsoft's Indiana plants still wait
• Singapore: Up to 13 GW by 2031 — new data centres wait on green fuel
• Australia: 550 MW at an old smelter as NSW makes data centres pay for the wires
• US markets hub

Sibling Stack layers

• The Stack hub
• Neoclouds
• Semiconductors
• AI Data Centers

Practical takeaways

1. Read the funding line beside the capex line. When a buyer adds equity, leases or private credit, capex has outrun what the business pays for by itself.
2. Date the cash, not the headline. Meta's $35 billion is partly cash at closing and partly cash by November 2027; the $60 billion is a plan.
3. Compare money raised with money due. Meta's $121.41 billion of 2027 commitments is about 3.5 times the $35 billion it has launched.
4. Treat "sold out" as a timing statement. It means customers have signed, and revenue now waits on halls, power and memory.
5. Watch Microsoft and Alphabet on 28 October and Amazon on 29 October for capex, free cash flow, backlog and any new debt, lease or equity plans.

FAQ

Is this a buy list?

No. This is a map of roles and constraints. Not investment advice. Do your own research.

Why is status Tightening on 2026-10-27?

Because capacity is sold years ahead while halls and power arrive from 2027 to 2029 and beyond, and the buyers now need outside money to carry that gap. Meta launched $35 billion of stock and plans up to $60 billion more, SpaceX leased $40 billion of GPUs that pay from delivery, and Meta's 2027 commitments are larger than the money raised. We would ease status if operating cash grows back above capex, or if handovers come in ahead of plan.

How did this advance from the 2026-10-23 Stack frame?

The 23 October desk led with Paid before power / Energisation binds: Meta's capex outran its cash, Amazon took racks before halls were ready, and Google paid for grid work. This update shows what came next: AWS said its capacity is sold into 2028, Meta turned to equity, and SpaceX leased its GPUs. The hero moves to Sold out, selling stock / Funding the wait binds.

Why would a company that is sold out need to sell stock?

Because being sold out means customers have signed, not that they have paid. The buyer must pay for chips, halls and power years before the capacity bills. When that spending runs ahead of operating cash, the gap has to be filled with debt, leases or equity.

What is a forward sale, and why does Meta get the cash later?

Banks borrow Meta shares and sell them now. Meta delivers new shares and takes the cash when it settles the agreement, on dates it chooses up to 19 November 2027. That lets Meta fix the price today and draw the money when the bills arrive.

Why lease GPUs instead of buying them?

A lessor buys the chips and the buyer pays rent from delivery, so the buyer does not tie up its own cash or debt capacity while it waits. SpaceX's lease charges a twentieth of each tranche's cost every quarter plus a fixed rate, so the lender is repaid in about five years.

How is this different from the AI Data Centers layer?

AI Data Centers covers the halls, megawatts, landlords and power-to-hall deals. Hyperscalers covers the buyer: its capex, its cash, its backlog, and how it funds the wait before those halls switch on.

How we check

1. Company releases and SEC filings first — offering terms, settlement dates, lease and commitment notes, capex and operating cash.
2. Executive remarks on the record, labelled by venue; a podcast answer is not a filing.
3. Local and trade press for site dates and land deals, with the publication named.
4. Plans labelled as plans: an at-the-market programme with no agreement, a non-binding indication of interest, a lease not yet closed.
5. Our own arithmetic, labelled as ours, never as a reported figure.

What would change the view

• Microsoft, Alphabet or Amazon reporting operating cash back above capex on 28–29 October, with no new funding plans.
• Meta settling its forwards early and dropping or shrinking the $60 billion share programme.
• AWS backlog falling in the third quarter, which would say "sold out" describes old contracts rather than new demand.
• Handovers or energisation coming in ahead of the 2029 dates Microsoft has given.
• More buyers turning to equity, leases or private credit, which would tighten the view further.

Not investment advice. Do your own research. The $85.82 billion, $49–59 billion, $16–26 billion, 25%, 68%, 3.5×, $2 billion a quarter and $600 million a day figures are our arithmetic on reported figures. The Q4 gap assumes fourth-quarter operating cash similar to the third quarter. Jassy's remarks are from a podcast, not a filing.
Last updated: 2026-10-27 · Second Order by TKN

References

1. Meta Platforms, "Meta Announces Launch of Offering of Depositary Shares Representing Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock and Offering of Class A Common Stock in Connection with Forward Sale Agreements", 26 Oct 2026. About $35 billion underwritten ($22.5 billion Class A via forward sales, about $12.5 billion mandatory convertible preferred); planned $60 billion ATM from Q1 2027, not agreed; forwards settle on or before 19 Nov 2027; preferred converts about 15 Aug 2029; Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom non-binding interest up to $5.0 billion; $97 billion operating cash in nine months.
2. Meta Platforms, "Meta Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results", 21 Oct 2026. Q3 capex incl. finance-lease principal $34.91 billion; operating cash $32.79 billion; free cash flow -$2.12 billion; nine-month property purchases $83.06 billion plus $2.77 billion finance-lease principal; 2026 capex $135–145 billion; Class C effective 19 Jan 2027.
3. Quartz, "Meta has committed about $825 billion to future leases and contracts, many tied to AI", 22 Oct 2026. From Meta's Q3 Form 10-Q: $355.73 billion of leases not yet commenced (2026–2036); $454.52 billion of non-cancelable commitments, $121.41 billion due in 2027; $10.80 billion of money-market funds in escrow to 2028–2030.
4. Data Center Dynamics, "AWS capacity 'largely' sold out in 2027, Amazon CEO claims", 26 Oct 2026. Andy Jassy on the a16z podcast (released 23 Oct): 2026 sold out, 2027 largely sold out, a good chunk of 2028 sold out; $220 billion of 2026 capex still leaves demand unmet; supply constraints for several years.
5. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Form 8-K (Item 8.01), filed 26 Oct 2026. Binding commitment (24 Oct) for a master finance lease of GPU pods with an Apollo-managed lessor; about $40 billion of principal; rent quarterly in advance, one-twentieth of each tranche plus a fixed rate; terms about 5–5.25 years; close expected before year-end; schedules start in H1 2027 on GPU delivery.
6. Northwest Indiana Business Magazine, "Microsoft agrees to 20-year partnership with GenCo", 26 Oct 2026. Microsoft's $1 billion La Porte complex: first and second buildings complete by spring 2029, third by winter 2029; about 1,100 MW added from 2028; Microsoft funds generation and transmission.
7. Data Center Dynamics, "Microsoft acquires 37 acres in Licking County, Ohio", 26 Oct 2026. About $6.65 million for 37 acres in Pataskala; holdings in Licking County above 700 acres; Heath, Hebron and New Albany campuses aim to be online by 2029.
8. Stocktwits via Yahoo Finance, "Broadcom, Oracle And SpaceX Tap Private Credit For AI Hardware: Report" (citing The Wall Street Journal), 7 Oct 2026. Oracle reported in talks with Apollo and Goldman Sachs to fund a large chip purchase through a separate company that buys the chips and leases them to Oracle.
9. DataCenterFeed, "Liberty Energy Signs 1.2 GW Power Agreement With Unnamed Frontier AI Lab", 22 Oct 2026. From Liberty's 21 Oct results: 1.2 GW development agreement with a frontier AI lab and an infrastructure platform; significant prepayment of capacity fees; first ESA of about 500 MW targeted by December 2026; energisation Q4 2027 to Q1 2029.
10. Wikimedia Commons, "Inside Google datacenter during construction (2007) - panoramio.jpg", photo by erwinboogert, CC BY-SA 3.0. Featured image base photo.