Microsoft Pays Cash. Amazon Borrows. Here's How Big Tech Funds Its AI Boom.

So far, I have shown you the AI scoreboard. Each hyperscaler has massive AI investment plans, and each projection comes with some quirks.

Now it's time for the bar tab question. Five giants ordered similar enormous meals. How will each one settle the check?

Image source: Getty Images.

Microsoft pays cash

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the outlier that still pays in cash.

Its operating cash flow of $55.4 billion last quarter covered its $35.8 billion in net capital expenses, leaving $19.6 billion in free cash flow. The company spent $4.06 billion on share buybacks in the quarter, up from $4.00 billion in the year-ago period. Dividend payouts rose 9.5% to $6.76 billion. There's no cash crunch here.

Total debt sits near $40.3 billion, low for a company of its size. Microsoft's cash equivalents and short-term investments add up to $76.8 billion. It is funding the AI builds from cash generation so far and has ample cash reserves available if cash flows ever turn negative.

Alphabet borrows while sitting on a fortune

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is currently operating in red-ink mode. The Google parent generated $39.1 billion of operating cash flow in Q2 2026 while spending $44.9 billion on property and equipment. Free cash flow was negative for the first time since the company's IPO in 2004, to the tune of $5.9 billion.

Trailing-12-month cash flows are still a robust $53.3 billion, and Alphabet's balance sheet could easily support a few years of cash burn. It held $126.8 billion of liquid reserves at the end of Q1, with $77.5 billion of long-term debt.

But the company is making some moves to support its cash requirements.

At the end of Q2, Alphabet held $242.5 billion of cash equivalents and liquid investments alongside $98.2 billion of debt. That's $20.7 billion of new long-term debt (including a 100-year bond), and a massive leap from just $23.6 billion of debt in Q2 2025. It also halted share buybacks for the first time in years. Alphabet also sold $49.6 billion of new shares, including a direct $10 billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB).

The largest cash hoard at the hyperscaler table isn't enough for Alphabet's long-term plans. Like it or not, Alphabet is pulling several levers to support even bigger investments in 2027 and beyond.

Amazon just borrows

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is the straightforward borrower. It sold $25 billion of bonds in July on top of tens of billions more this year, carrying total debt near $133 billion.

It pays no dividend and buys back little, so nearly all of its build is funded from cash flow and the bond market.

Meta splits the check

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is splitting the AI check with a friend. It has leaned into debt, pushing borrowings to $83.7 billion.

The company brought in financial giant BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) for a data center project in El Paso, Texas, giving away 80% ownership of the project (along with 80% of the risk and costs). Most of that roughly $14 billion investment never lands on Meta's own books, though BlackRock also gets to share in the financial returns of this Texan data center. Meanwhile, Meta's dividend now costs more than the free cash flow it generates, which is a bold choice.

Oracle gets customers to pay first

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) is the most creative AI builder, and the most stretched.

It raised $43 billion of debt in fiscal 2026, plans about $40 billion more this year, and is now the largest non-financial borrower in the U.S. investment-grade market. That's the stretchy part.

Furthermore, Oracle leans on its customers in an innovative way. It signs multiyear AI computing deals with large prepayments, creating a different capital structure. $4.6 billion of customer prepayments flowed through its operating cash flow in Q4 2026, and its fiscal-2027 spending guidance runs $20 billion to $25 billion lower on a net basis than gross. That's because customers have pre-funded that much of the infrastructure build.

So Oracle gets other people to pay a significant part of its bill, while taking on heavy debt. When Oracle says its "net" build is about $70 billion, that word is doing some heavy lifting.

Same dinner, five ways to pay. One puts down cash, one borrows, one borrows while sitting on a fortune, one splits it with a partner, and one talks the table into covering part of the bill.

Next time, I'll consider the question that decides who keeps eating like this: Whose wallet can actually take it? That's the balance-sheet piece, and it's where Microsoft and Oracle stop looking alike.

Anders Bylund has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, BlackRock, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.