Debt financing for AI-related needs — be it for data center construction or general liquidity amid aggressive spending — is accelerating in 2026, testing the limits of investor demand.
July already has featured a $25 billion bond package for Amazon.com, and data center operator QTS is marketing an additional $2 billion across bonds and loans for mid-month pricing
That’s after the US high-yield bond market absorbed $31.9 billion of new AI-related bonds through July 8 this year, all but $4 billion of which backed new data centers. (The balance was issued to borrowers from the AI infrastructure/AI compute sector for refinancing or other general corporate purposes, or to borrowers where AI is the main product.) Issuance in 2025 ramped to $12.1 billion over the second half of the year, from $2 billion for the first half. Heady volumes in high-grade bonds underscore the urgency of the buildout. IG-rated bonds from traditional hyperscalers (Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle), data center developers (including Hut 8, Beacon Point, QTS), and other AI-focused concerns (SpaceX, Nvidia, NTT, among others) reached $218 billion through July 8, blasting past an $80.5 billion 2025 total, virtually all of which was placed in the second half of the year.
Sign up for The Credit Pitch Weekly coverage of US and European loans, bonds, private credit, and more. Signs of buyside indigestion are showing, particularly for AI hyperscalers. New SpaceX 6.65% 30-year bonds traded above T+200 this week, from pricing at T+175.