The richest companies on the planet have decided they need to borrow money. A lot of it.
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Oracle have collectively issued $159 billion in bonds through just the first five months of 2026. To put that in perspective, those same five companies raised roughly $150 billion in bonds across the entire 2020 to 2024 period. They blew past a half-decade’s worth of borrowing before summer even started.
The AI money pit
Hyperscalers, the industry term for the handful of cloud giants that operate the world’s largest data centers, are projected to spend over $770 billion in capital expenditures in 2026 alone.
Morgan Stanley projects that total US high-grade bond issuance from hyperscalers and adjacent firms could hit roughly $400 billion for the full year. Globally, AI-related debt issuance forecasts sit near $570 billion for 2026.
