AI-related debt hits $489B in 2026, reshaping bond markets

Tech companies have borrowed at a pace that would have been unthinkable just two years ago. Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ↗ 1.16% estimates that AI-related borrowers have raised $489 billion in debt so far in 2026, already surpassing the bank's full-year 2025 estimate of $322 billion with five months still remaining in the calendar year. The flood of corporate issuance is reshaping credit markets and raising questions about whether the borrowing binge will crowd out demand for U.S. Treasuries and other fixed-income assets.The Dark Side Of The Boom+1

A Widening Circle of Borrowers

The borrowing is no longer confined to the largest hyperscalers. According to Goldman Sachs data, only 40% of 2026 issuance came directly from Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 1.09%, Alphabet ↘ 1.24%, Meta ↘ 2.58%, Microsoft ↘ 1.86%, and Oracle ↘ 0.95%. The remaining 60% has spread across data center developers, AI infrastructure firms, and other parts of the technology ecosystem. AI-related debt now accounts for roughly 23% of U.S. dollar investment-grade issuance and 20% of high-yield supply.The Dark Side Of The Boom

Morgan Stanley ↗ 0.97% projected in June that global AI debt issuance could reach nearly $570 billion by year-end, more than double the 2025 total. As of May 31, AI-related issuance had already hit $236 billion — a fourfold increase over the same period a year earlier. Amazon alone raised €14.5 billion in March in the largest-ever euro corporate bond deal, according to LSEG, while Alphabet has become a top-10 borrower in multiple global bond indexes.Reuters+2

Galaxy Digital Joins the Rush

The latest entrant is Galaxy Digital ↘ 2.44%, which on Wednesday announced plans to offer $3.507 billion in senior secured notes due 2031 to finance its Helios Data Center Campus in Dickens County, West Texas. The facility, a former crypto mining site, is being converted under a 15-year lease to host AI and high-performance computing infrastructure for CoreWeave ↗ 3.85%. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are managing the offering, which is scheduled to price on July 23.Investing.com+4

Pressure on Treasuries

The sheer volume of corporate supply is drawing attention from fixed-income strategists who worry it could compete with government debt for buyers. According to Reuters, AI-related infrastructure investment contributed to a sell-off in May that drove 30-year Treasury yields to their highest point since 2007. Apollo's chief economist Torsten Slok has argued that the borrowing is already diminishing demand for Treasuries and other fixed-income assets. The Dallas Federal Reserve published research in February warning that long-term investment-grade issuance and possible crowding out of financial-sector borrowers are "duration supply channels to watch".Reuters+2

Not all market participants share those concerns. Todd Czachor, head of income research at Columbia Threadneedle, told Forbes he has "not yet observed any signs" of crowding out in the corporate bond market, adding that "demand for corporate bonds in the current yield environment has remained robust".Forbes