---
title: "The order books nobody reads: $1 trillion of signed AI demand, straight from the filings"
description: "Oracle $638B RPO. Microsoft $678B commercial RPO, filed this week. Micron's $100B take-or-pay minimums. AWS commitments near $195B. Google Cloud backlog compounding. The AI bubble debate ignores the one thing that is actually signed."
canonical: https://evidinvest.com/blog/ai-order-books-rpo-backlog-filed-evidence-2026-07-26
date: "2026-07-30"
last_updated: "2026-07-30"
author: "EvidInvest Team"
publisher: "EBD Sweden AB (EvidInvest)"
tags: ["AI infrastructure", "RPO", "backlog", "ORCL", "MSFT", "MU", "AMZN", "GOOGL", "SEC filings"]
---

# The order books nobody reads: $1 trillion of signed AI demand, straight from the filings

- Published: 2026-07-30
- Author: EvidInvest Team, EvidInvest (published by EBD Sweden AB)
- Canonical URL: https://evidinvest.com/blog/ai-order-books-rpo-backlog-filed-evidence-2026-07-26
- Research, not investment advice.

> Oracle $638B RPO. Microsoft $678B commercial RPO, filed this week. Micron's $100B take-or-pay minimums. AWS commitments near $195B. Google Cloud backlog compounding. The AI bubble debate ignores the one thing that is actually signed.

Every AI bubble argument you have read this month — for or against — was
probably built from price charts, capex headlines and vibes. There is a class
of evidence that settles most of it, and almost nobody quotes it: **the order
book disclosures buried in SEC filings.**

Remaining performance obligations. Revenue backlog. Commitments not yet
recognized. Take-or-pay minimums. Different names, same substance: money
customers have **signed binding contracts to spend**, that has not yet appeared
in anyone's revenue line. Opinions about AI demand are free. Obligations are
filed. Here is the filed record, company by company, pulled through Aether.

If you are the kind of reader who wants a price target at the end, wrong
account. If you want to know whether the demand under the buildout is real and
contracted, keep going.

## Oracle: $638 billion, up 363%

Oracle **[$ORCL](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/ORCL)** disclosed RPO of **$638 billion as of May 31, 2026, up 363%
year over year and up $85 billion in a single quarter** (June 10, 2026
release). Three years of hypergrowth would still leave most of it unrecognized.
Two structural details matter: most of the recent increase came from large AI
contracts, and **$75 billion of those contracts is customer-prepaid or
customer-supplied hardware** — buyers are so committed they are financing the
seller's buildout. We covered the funding-model tension in our companion piece
on Oracle; the demand side of its ledger is not in dispute.

## Microsoft: $678 billion, filed this week

Microsoft **[$MSFT](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/MSFT)** put an absolute number on its order book
two days ago: **commercial remaining performance obligation of $678 billion as
of June 30, 2026, up 84 percent year over year** — another $51 billion added
in the single quarter since March's $627 billion (Q4 FY2026 release, July 29).
Alongside it: Azure growth *accelerating* to 43 percent, fiscal-year Azure
revenue past **$100 billion** for the first time, and Microsoft 365 Copilot
past 30 million paid seats — our
[full results breakdown](https://evidinvest.com/blog/msft-q4-fy2026-earnings-results-azure-100b-rpo-678b-2026-07-29).
Enterprises are not renting AI capacity month to month. They are signing
multi-year obligations for capacity that partly does not exist yet.

## Micron: the strongest form of order book that exists

An RPO can, in principle, disappoint — recognition depends on delivery and
usage. Micron **[$MU](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/MU)** disclosed something stricter on June 24: **16 Strategic
Customer Agreements structured as take-or-pay**, with binding volume
commitments running to calendar 2030, covering roughly 20% of its DRAM volume
and a third of its NAND volume. Fourteen of the sixteen carry **cumulative
minimum revenue of about $100 billion**, backed by a projected **$22 billion in
customer cash deposits and financial commitments**. Take-or-pay with deposits
is the hardest demand evidence a filing can contain: the customer pays whether
or not they take the memory. Full breakdown in our Micron deep dive.

## Amazon: the arc nobody charts

Amazon **[$AMZN](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/AMZN)** discloses, in every 10-K and 10-Q, commitments in customer
contracts (primarily AWS) for future services not yet recognized. The filed
arc: **$80.4 billion** (December 2021), **$110.4 billion** (December 2022),
**$157.7 billion** (March 2024), **approximately $195 billion** (June 2025) —
with a weighted-average contract life around four years. That is AWS demand
more than doubling in contract form across the exact period the industry was
supposedly overbuilding. It rhymes with the growth reacceleration in the
segment tables: 17%, 20%, 24%, 28% over the last four quarters. Amazon
reports Q2 2026 after today's close; the fresh commitments figure arrives
with the 10-Q, and we will extend the arc against the document when it lands.

## Alphabet: the backlog that keeps re-rating

Alphabet **[$GOOGL](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/GOOGL)** calls it revenue backlog, primarily Google Cloud. Filed
arc: **$64.3 billion** (December 2022), **$78.8 billion** (June 2024), **$108.2
billion** (June 2025). Then came the quarter just reported: Cloud revenue up
82% with operating income tripling, and a $49.6 billion equity raise whose
stated purpose is "capital expenditures to scale AI infrastructure and global
compute" (Q2 2026 8-K, July 22 — our
[full results breakdown](https://evidinvest.com/blog/googl-q2-2026-earnings-results-cloud-equity-raise-2026-07-22)).
Posts circulating after the earnings call put the new backlog figure above
$500 billion; that number is **reported commentary until the Q2 10-Q is
filed**, and we will update this piece against the document when it lands.
That discipline — filed versus said — is the entire method.

## Read the fine print like an analyst, not a fan

Order books are the best evidence in this debate, not perfect evidence. Three
honest caveats, from the definitions in the filings themselves. RPO and backlog
are recognized only as sellers deliver and customers consume, so timing can
disappoint even when the commitment is real. Definitions differ: Alphabet
excludes cancellable contracts and contracts under a year; Amazon counts only
contracts with original terms over one year, and usage can extend beyond the
term. Concentration cuts both ways: much of Oracle's increase comes from a
small number of very large AI customers, which is exactly why the take-or-pay
and prepayment structures matter — they convert relationship risk into
contract law.

## The tally

Add up only what is filed: Oracle's $638 billion, Microsoft's $678 billion,
Amazon's ~$195 billion as of mid-2025, Alphabet's $108 billion as of the same
date and climbing, Micron's $100 billion floor. Signed AI-era demand now
clears **$1.7 trillion** without counting a single announcement, MOU or
press-conference number — no NVIDIA–SK initiative, no Samsung–Broadcom MOU,
none of the letters of intent that dominate the timeline.

And this week filed the other side of the same ledger. The evening Microsoft
disclosed its $678 billion order book, Meta **[$META](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/META)**
reported $31.1 billion of quarterly capex that squeezed its free cash flow to
$784 million ([our breakdown](https://evidinvest.com/blog/meta-q2-2026-earnings-results-capex-eats-cash-2026-07-29)).
The sellers' backlogs and the buyers' compressed margins are the same
contracts, viewed from opposite ends.

The bubble question, properly phrased, is not "is the spending real" — the
spending is contracted. It is "can delivery keep pace with what has been
signed." That is a question filings will answer quarter by quarter, in the
same footnotes almost nobody reads.

Headlines move prices; filings size the exposure. Small first step: pick one
company you own and find its RPO or backlog footnote in the latest 10-Q — one
search, ninety seconds — or check any figure in this piece against the source
documents on [Aether](https://aether.evidinvest.com), our SEC search engine.

Sources: ORCL Q4 FY2026 release, June 10, 2026 (acc 0001193125-26-265848);
MSFT Q4 FY2026 8-K, July 29, 2026 (acc 0001193125-26-323632) and Q3 FY2026
8-K, April 2026 (acc 0001193125-26-191457); META Q2 2026 8-K, July 29, 2026
(acc 0001628280-26-050596); MU Q3 FY2026 release
and call, June 24, 2026 (acc 0000723125-26-000013); AMZN 10-K FY2022 (acc
0001018724-23-000004), 10-Q March 2024 (acc 0001018724-24-000083), 10-Q June
2025 (acc 0001018724-25-000086); GOOGL 10-K FY2022 (acc 0001652044-23-000016),
10-Q June 2024 (acc 0001652044-24-000079), 10-Q June 2025 (acc
0001652044-25-000062), Q2 2026 8-K (acc 0001652044-26-000066). All retrieved
and cited via Aether.

Research, not investment advice.

---

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