$578 billion owed to Amazon, $884 billion owed by it

The press release had the record margin. The quarterly filing, published this morning, has the two longest columns in the building: what customers have promised to pay, and what Amazon has promised to pay others.

Tech & Compute Dr. Benjamin Koch / The Desk Friday, 30 October 2026, 17:30 CET 2 min read2 sources

Amazon’s press release on Thursday told the story of a record quarter. Its Form 10-Q, accepted by the SEC on Thursday evening and public this morning, tells the story of contracts. Two tables in it deserve more attention than any slide.

What customers owe. Amazon says customers have committed to approximately $578 billion of future services under contracts longer than a year that it has not yet booked as revenue, “primarily related to AWS”, with an average remaining life of 6.1 years¹. Some of it is large and named: in the first quarter AWS expanded its arrangement with OpenAI by $100.0 billion over eight years, and in the second it expanded its commitment with Anthropic by more than $100.0 billion over ten years¹.

What Amazon owes. The other column is longer. Principal contractual commitments at the end of September totalled $883.6 billion, the filing shows, including $159.6 billion for property and equipment, $63.9 billion of it due in 2027, and $164.9 billion for leases that have not yet started¹. Long-term debt rose from $65.6 billion at the end of 2025 to $173.1 billion¹. Desk arithmetic: about 2.6 times as much in nine months. Interest expense in the quarter was $1.69 billion, against $538 million a year earlier¹. The filing also describes a secured loan facility from suppliers of up to about $80.0 billion for technology infrastructure, available from early 2027¹.

Reading the two together. The columns are not a balance: the commitments include leases, debt interest and media rights, and the backlog depends on customers actually using what they signed for, as the filing itself says¹. But they show the shape of the bet more honestly than a forecast does. Amazon is borrowing and signing now against revenue that is contracted, not yet earned.

For you. You don’t need an opinion on artificial intelligence to read this. You need two numbers and a date, and the company has to update all three every quarter. Apple, whose results come on Monday, will publish its own². Nothing here is investment advice.

What to watch

Apple's fiscal fourth-quarter results on Monday 2 November; its conference call is at 14:00 Pacific time, 23:00 CET².
When Amazon starts drawing on its secured supplier loan facility, which the filing says runs from the first quarter of 2027¹.

Desk comment

A keynote tells you what a company hopes; the commitments table tells you what it has signed.

Sources

Amazon.com, Inc. Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026 (full text as filed with the SEC) — Amazon.com, Inc., via StockTitan EDGAR copy, accepted by the SEC 29 Oct 2026, 23:20 CET; retrieved 30 Oct 2026, 16:31 CET.
FY 26 Fourth Quarter Results (event details) — Apple Inc. (investor relations), retrieved 30 Oct 2026.

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