I suppose you can get AI to do your clever accounting and then blame the computer for it.
A gap in US accounting rules allows Big Tech companies to conceal tens of billions of dollars of potential liabilities for their AI data centres, the credit rating agency Moody’s warned on Monday
This stuff is above my paygrade, generally, but this illustrates the issue pretty well. A long likely-to-be-renewed lease has to be recorded as a debt liability, but a shorter lease with a guaranteed payment doesn't for some reason.
The largest private credit data centre deal is a case in point, Moody’s said. Meta’s planned Hyperion facility in Louisiana, housed in a special purpose vehicle called Beignet Investor that has financing from Blue Owl Capital, will be leased to the company for an initial term of four years, but with options to renew for up to 20. Meta is also guaranteeing compensation of up to $28bn if the value of the property falls.
Obviously this stuff isn't entirely hidden, but the benefit arises when everybody pretends to believe numbers they know are sorta fake. They do that because they are often betting other people's money.
Not precisely the same, but a bit like pretendng a mortgage backed security is AAA rated because it is 51% AAA, but 49% shit (or something like that). It isn't as if no one can see what's inside, but if we pretend the label on the package is correct, then we can sell it to people who demand the correct label and trust it (and us).