Alphabet sold $25bn of investment-grade bonds on Thursday, one of the largest AI-related debt deals of the year. The sale drew about $115bn of peak demand, behind only Oracle and Amazon deals earlier in 2026. It came in 10 tranches, with maturities running from two to 40 years.
The enthusiasm had a catch. To pull buyers in, Alphabet offered what bankers call a new-issue concession: higher yields than some of its own outstanding bonds. The premium on the longest bond started at 1.55 percentage points over US Treasuries before settling at 1.3. And Alphabet told investors, through its dealers, that it now plans to tap the US bond market twice a year.
Why the richest company in tech is borrowing
The context is a spending bill that has grown enormous. Alphabet has raised its 2026 capital budget to as much as $205bn, more than double last year. In July it posted its first negative free cash flow since its 2004 stock-market debut. Cash alone no longer covers the bill.
So Alphabet has become a serial issuer. It has sold more than $114bn of debt since the start of 2025, the most of any AI-related borrower, in dollars, euros, pounds, francs, yen and Canadian dollars, plus a rare 100-year bond. In June it raised nearly $85bn in shares too, including an investment from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
