The AI debt ledger: bonds, leases and private credit behind the buildout
AI-related debt issuance hit about $450B by September 2026 as five hyperscalers disclose $1.1T of uncommenced leases and Oracle's credit spreads widen.
Key findings
- Global AI-related debt issuance reached about $450B by early September 2026, more than double the total for all of 2025, according to Morgan Stanley figures cited in the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee record.
- Four hyperscalers (Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle) sold about $194B of bonds in 2026 through July 7, against about $108B in all of 2025, per LSEG data reported by Reuters. Microsoft has not issued; its fiscal 2026 cash flow statement shows only $3.0B of repayments.
- The larger obligation sits off the balance sheet. Five companies disclose about $1.1 trillion of leases that have not yet commenced, roughly 2.3 times their combined $480B of debt: Microsoft $329B, Oracle $288B, Meta $279B, Amazon about $137B and Alphabet $85B.
- Maturities are stretching. 2026 deals included a 100-year sterling bond from Alphabet at 6.125% and 50-year dollar tranches from Alphabet and Amazon, and Alphabet’s 40-year coupon rose from 5.75% in February to 6.50% in August, while Oracle paid 6.85% in February.
- Project vehicles are pricing well wide of their sponsors: the $27.3B Hyperion financing for Meta’s Louisiana campus priced at 6.581%, and a $12.5B financing for its El Paso campus at about 7.5%. Meta’s 10-Q puts its maximum exposure to loss on Hyperion at $46.03B.
- Credit stress has concentrated in Oracle: S&P cut its rating to BBB- on July 9, 2026 according to press reports, its five-year credit default swap spread rose from 144 basis points at the start of the year to 215 in late July, and its long-dated bonds were yielding about 8.4% in early October, according to press reports.
Why a debt ledger
Our AI capex ledger showed hyperscaler capex reaching 96% of operating cash flow in Q2 2026. Once spending absorbs nearly all internally generated cash, the marginal dollar comes from capital markets. This report tracks that dollar across four channels: corporate bonds, off-balance-sheet project vehicles, leases, and private credit and securitisation. It also records how credit markets and regulators have responded.
The bond ledger: largest deals, September 2025 to October 2026
| Issuer | Date | Size | Longest tranche | Pricing notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle | Sept. 24, 2025 | $18.0B | 40 years (6.10% due 2065) | Six tranches |
| Meta | Oct. 30, 2025 | $30B | 40 years | Six tranches at 50 to 110 bp over Treasuries; orders of $125B |
| Alphabet | Nov. 2025 | $17.5B and EUR 6.5B | 50 years (5.70% due 2075) | Eight dollar tranches |
| Amazon | Nov. 17, 2025 | about $15B | 40 years | Six tranches |
| Oracle | Feb. 2, 2026 | $25B | 40 years (6.85% due 2066) | Eight tranches; alongside $5B of mandatory convertible preferred and a $20B share sale program |
| Alphabet | Feb. 9 to 10, 2026 | $20B, GBP 5.5B and CHF 3.1B | 100 years (GBP 1B at 6.125% due 2126) | Dollar coupons of 3.70% to 5.75% |
| Amazon | Mar. 10 to 11, 2026 | $37B and EUR 14.5B | 50 years (6.05% due 2076) | Eleven dollar tranches |
| Meta | Apr. 30, 2026 | $25B | 40 years (due 2066) | Coupons of 4.55% to 6.45% |
| Alphabet | May 2026 | EUR 9.0B, CAD 8.5B and JPY 576.5B | 40 years (yen, due 2066) | Euro coupons of 3.20% to 4.80% |
| Nvidia | June 15, 2026 | $25B | 30 years (due 2056) | Seven tranches |
| SpaceX (owner of xAI) | June 23, 2026 | $25B | 30 years (due 2056) | Coupons of 5.35% to 6.65% |
| Amazon | July 7, 2026 | $25B | 40 years (6.25% due 2066) | Spreads of 40 to 125 bp over Treasuries; orders of $62B |
| Alphabet | Aug. 6, 2026 | $25B | 40 years (6.50% due 2066) | Spreads of 33 to 130 bp over Treasuries |
| Amazon | Sept. 9, 2026 | GBP 4.25B | 19 years | Four tranches |
Alphabet’s first-half 2026 notes, Meta’s notes priced April 30, 2026 and Oracle’s terms are from SEC filings. Meta’s interest figure in the table below is interest on its notes net of capitalised interest, a narrower measure than the others. Other deal terms are from press and law firm reports listed in Sources. Order book and spread figures are as reported at pricing.
Three patterns stand out. First, size: Alphabet’s 10-Q shows $56.2B of net debt proceeds in the first half of 2026 plus $19.1B of net proceeds from 6.25% mandatory convertible preferred stock, and Amazon’s shows $67.0B of long-term debt issued in the same six months. Second, tenor: issuers are borrowing for 40, 50 and in one case 100 years to fund assets, chips in particular, with far shorter useful lives. Third, cost: Alphabet’s 40-year coupon rose from 5.75% in February to 6.50% in August as supply built and Treasury yields climbed.
Balance sheets: debt, cash and the lease pipeline
| Company (as of) | Debt | Cash and marketable securities | Net cash (net debt) | Quarterly interest expense | Leases not yet commenced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet (June 30, 2026) | $101.1B face | $242.5B | about $141B | $1,278M (a year earlier: $261M) | $85.2B |
| Amazon (June 30, 2026) | $128.9B long-term | $123.0B | about ($6B) | $1,314M | about $137B (sum of disclosed schedule) |
| Meta (June 30, 2026) | $84.0B face | $90.3B | about $6B | $754M (a year earlier: $232M) | $279.0B |
| Microsoft (June 30, 2026) | $40.3B | $76.8B | about $37B | n/a | $329.1B (press report of 10-K) |
| Oracle (Aug. 31, 2026) | $125.3B | $37.1B | about ($88B) | $1,428M (a year earlier: $923M) | $288B |
On reported debt alone, four of the five look comfortable; only Oracle carries heavy net debt. The lease column changes the picture. Leases that have been signed but have not yet commenced are disclosed in the notes and do not appear on the balance sheet until the data center is delivered. They total about $1.1 trillion across the five, against about $480B of debt. Meta’s 10-Q adds that it signed about $68B of further leases in July 2026, after the balance sheet date. Interest expense has also stepped up sharply: nearly five times higher than a year earlier at Alphabet and more than three times at Meta.
Off the balance sheet: project vehicles
| Vehicle | Sponsor and tenant | Financing | Key terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beignet Investor (Hyperion, Louisiana) | Blue Owl 80%, Meta 20%; leased to Meta | $27.3B of 6.581% amortising notes due May 2049, priced Oct. 16, 2025 at 225 bp over Treasuries | Four-year lease renewable to 20 years; residual value guarantee from Meta; Meta’s maximum exposure to loss $46.03B; not consolidated |
| Sopaipilla Investor (El Paso, Texas) | BlackRock funds 80%, Meta 20%; leased to Meta | $12.5B of notes due 2048, priced July 27, 2026 at a yield of about 7.5% | Triple-net lease with a residual value guarantee, per press reports |
| Vantage campuses (Texas and Wisconsin) | Vantage; Oracle and OpenAI capacity | $38B loan package led by JPMorgan and MUFG | Reported September 2025 |
| Saline Township, Michigan | Related Digital; Oracle tenant | $16B project; Pimco anchors the fixed-rate debt | Announced April 24, 2026 |
| Pike County, Ohio | SB Energy; leased to OpenAI | Nvidia guarantee of up to $105B | Nvidia’s filings show total guarantee exposure of $108.5B |
The structure is consistent: an investor-owned vehicle borrows against a long lease, the tenant commits for an initial term of only a few years, and a residual value guarantee protects lenders if the tenant leaves. The tenant keeps the debt off its balance sheet, and investors are paid for the difference. Hyperion’s notes priced at 225 basis points over Treasuries when Meta’s own 40-year bonds priced the same month at 110. Rating agencies differ on the treatment: press reports say Moody’s has indicated it may add such obligations to adjusted debt, while S&P assigns no debt to the Hyperion guarantee. Our gigawatt ledger tracks the campuses themselves.
Private credit and securitisation
Below the investment-grade bond market, three channels are growing quickly.
- Data center securitisation. Issuance of data center asset-backed and commercial mortgage-backed securities was about $26B in 2025 on preliminary figures, up from $11.4B in 2024, according to a CRE Finance Council primer citing JPMorgan. A Structured Finance Association paper citing Barclays puts the amount outstanding at $61B in 2026, against $4B in 2020.
- GPU-backed loans. CoreWeave has raised a series of delayed-draw term loans secured on chips and customer contracts, including an $8.5B investment-grade facility at SOFR plus 2.25% and a $3.1B syndicated facility in 2026. Its total debt was about $35B at June 30, 2026. We cover the operators in our neocloud scorecard.
- Private credit. Blue Owl and Pimco anchor the Meta and Oracle-linked vehicles above. Morgan Stanley’s July 2025 research estimated $2.9 trillion of global data center spending from 2025 to 2028 with a $1.5 trillion financing gap, of which it expected private credit to supply about $800B.
How much more is coming
| Estimate | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Five hyperscalers’ US bond issuance, 2025 | $121B, against a 2020 to 2024 average of $28B a year | BofA via Reuters, Jan. 15, 2026 |
| Four hyperscalers (excluding Microsoft), 2026 through July 7 | about $194B, against about $108B in 2025 | LSEG via Reuters, July 29, 2026 |
| Global AI-related debt, 2026 to early September | about $450B, more than double 2025 | Bank of England FPC record citing Morgan Stanley |
| 2026 technology, media and telecom bond issuance forecast | $540B, raised from $450B | JPMorgan via Bloomberg, Aug. 10, 2026 |
| Debt-financed AI capex, 2026 to 2030 | about $4.1 trillion | JPMorgan, cited in the FPC record |
The AI labs sit behind much of this demand. Press reports of Anthropic’s confidential prospectus say it expects to spend at least $518B on AI infrastructure over about a decade, and a report on OpenAI’s finances cites about $665B of off-balance-sheet purchase commitments. Neither document is public, and both figures should be treated as reported rather than filed. They matter here because the labs’ contracts are the collateral, directly or indirectly, for a large share of the financings above.
Credit market signals
- Oracle. S&P lowered Oracle to BBB-, the lowest investment-grade rating, on July 9, 2026, and Moody’s rated it Baa2 with a negative outlook as of February 2026, according to press reports. Its five-year credit default swap spread rose from 144 basis points at the start of 2026 to 215 on July 27. Its long-dated bonds yielded about 8.4% in early October, according to press reports. Oracle’s own 10-Q shows senior notes with a fair value of $105.7B against $125.0B outstanding.
- New-issue pricing. Reuters, citing LSEG, reported that 78 of 91 hyperscaler bonds issued in 2026 were trading wider than their issue spread by July 28, and that the median new-issue concession had risen to 12 basis points from 2.25 in 2025.
- Ratings elsewhere. Alphabet (AA+), Amazon (AA), Meta (AA-) and Microsoft (AAA) carried stable outlooks at S&P as of late May 2026. We found no 2026 rating change for any of the four.
- Project loans. Press reports in mid-September said about $18B of loans for a New Mexico campus linked to Oracle were quoted at about 89 to 91 cents on the dollar; later reports said Oracle had sent a force majeure notice on the project.
- Rates. The Federal Open Market Committee raised its target range by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4.00% on September 16, 2026. The 10-year Treasury yield ended September at 5.29%, up from 5.01% on the day of the decision, which raises the cost of every refinancing in this ledger.
What regulators have said
Official-sector language has shifted from observation to concern during 2026. The Bank for International Settlements noted in March that hyperscaler gross issuance topped $100B in 2025 and that off-balance-sheet vehicles are tightening links between the companies and non-bank investors. The Federal Reserve’s May Financial Stability Report recorded that bond issuance by the largest investment-grade cloud companies neared $100B in the first quarter alone. The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, in the record of its September 25 meeting, said an increasing volume of AI investment was being financed with debt and noted that hyperscalers accounted for 47% of sterling corporate issuance in 2026 to date. The International Monetary Fund’s October 2026 full Global Financial Stability Report is due on October 13, after this report’s data cut-off.
Risks
- Asset and liability mismatch. Bonds of 40 to 100 years and leases of 15 to 20 years are funding chips that depreciate over about five to six years.
- Hidden leverage. About $1.1 trillion of uncommenced leases and guarantees on project vehicles do not appear in headline debt figures.
- Counterparty concentration. A small number of loss-making AI labs underpin the contracts that secure many of these financings.
- Refinancing at higher rates. A 10-year Treasury yield above 5% and wider concessions raise the cost of rolling shorter-dated tranches.
- Private market opacity. Terms, covenants and marks on private credit and project loans are not public, so stress may surface late.
Methodology
Scope and period: debt and debt-like financing tied to AI infrastructure from September 2025 to early October 2026, with balance sheet data from each company’s latest quarterly filing (June 30, 2026 for Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft; August 31, 2026 for Oracle). Data was gathered through October 11, 2026.
Sources and definitions: issuance by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle, debt balances, interest expense and lease disclosures are taken from Form 10-Q filings and earnings releases where available. Deal terms not in filings (order books, spreads, and deals by Nvidia, SpaceX and the project vehicles) come from press and law firm reports. Leases not yet commenced are as disclosed in lease notes; Amazon’s figure is our sum of its disclosed payment schedule because the stated total could not be read, and Microsoft’s is from a press report of its 10-K. Net cash is cash and marketable securities minus debt.
Computations: lease and debt totals ($1,118B and $480B), net cash figures, interest expense multiples and chart values were computed in Python from the sourced inputs. Chart bars are scaled to the largest value.
Limitations: aggregate issuance figures come from bank and data-provider research as reported by Reuters, Bloomberg and the Bank of England, and use differing definitions of AI-related debt. Oracle’s rating actions and credit default swap levels are from press reports. Anthropic and OpenAI obligations are from press reports of non-public documents. A clean 2026 year-to-date figure for data center securitisation could not be verified and is not shown. This report is not investment advice.
Sources
- Alphabet Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (as of June 30, 2026)
- Amazon Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (as of June 30, 2026)
- Meta Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (as of June 30, 2026)
- Microsoft fiscal Q4 2026 earnings release, Form 8-K exhibit (as of June 30, 2026)
- Oracle Form 10-Q for the quarter ended August 31, 2026 (as of August 31, 2026)
- Oracle prospectus supplement for its $18B notes offering (as of September 24, 2025)
- Bank of England Financial Policy Committee summary and record (as of September 30, 2026)
- Federal Reserve Financial Stability Report (as of May 8, 2026)
- BIS Quarterly Review, Financing the AI infrastructure boom (as of March 16, 2026)
- Federal Open Market Committee statement (as of September 16, 2026)
- US Treasury daily par yield curve rates (as of September 30, 2026)
- Reuters on hyperscaler issuance and spreads, citing LSEG (as of July 29, 2026)
- IFR on Alphabet’s $25B bond (as of August 7, 2026)
- IFR on the Beignet Investor (Hyperion) financing (as of 2026)
- Bloomberg on the launch of the El Paso data center financing (as of July 24, 2026)
- DatacenterDynamics on Amazon’s March 2026 bond sales (as of March 2026)
- The DESK on Meta’s $30B bond (as of October 30, 2025)
- PPC Land on S&P’s Oracle downgrade (as of July 2026)
- CRE Finance Council data center primer (as of February 25, 2026)
- Morgan Stanley, Bridging a $1.5tr data center financing gap (as of July 16, 2025)
- Oracle prospectus supplement for its $25B notes offering (as of February 2, 2026)
- Cleary Gottlieb on Alphabet’s November 2025 offerings (as of November 2025)
- Cleary Gottlieb on Alphabet’s sterling and Swiss franc bonds (as of February 2026)
- Investing.com on Amazon’s July 2026 bond (as of July 7, 2026)
- Reuters on Amazon’s sterling bond (as of September 9, 2026)
- TS2 on Amazon’s November 2025 bond (as of November 17, 2025)
- Bloomberg on Meta’s April 2026 bond (as of April 30, 2026)
- NVIDIA prospectus supplement for its notes offering (as of June 2026)
- Outlook Business on SpaceX’s $25B bond (as of June 2026)
- PitchBook on the priced El Paso financing (as of July 28, 2026)
- BTW Media on Microsoft’s uncommenced leases (as of 2026)
- Boerse Express on Oracle’s credit default swap spread (as of July 28, 2026)
- Benzinga on Oracle bond yields (as of October 2, 2026)
- Newsquawk on Moody’s Oracle rating (as of February 2, 2026)
- The DESK on hyperscaler credit ratings (as of May 27, 2026)
- IFR on rating agency treatment of off-balance-sheet data center deals (as of 2026)
- Reuters on 2025 hyperscaler bond issuance, citing BofA (as of January 15, 2026)
- Bloomberg on JPMorgan’s 2026 issuance forecast (as of August 10, 2026)
- Structured Finance Association on data center ABS and CMBS (as of July 23, 2026)
- CoreWeave on its $8.5B financing facility (as of 2026)
- DatacenterDynamics on the Vantage debt package (as of September 2025)
- Related Digital on its Michigan project financing (as of April 24, 2026)
- NVIDIA Q2 fiscal 2027 CFO commentary (as of August 26, 2026)
- Reuters on Anthropic’s planned infrastructure spending (as of September 29, 2026)
- The Next Web on OpenAI’s balance sheet (as of June 22, 2026)
- Traders Union on New Mexico data center loans, citing the FT (as of September 2026)
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Subscribe to the newsletterQuestions on this report
How much debt has been raised to fund AI infrastructure in 2026?
Global AI-related debt issuance was about $450B by early September 2026, more than double all of 2025, according to Morgan Stanley figures cited by the Bank of England. Four hyperscalers alone sold about $194B of bonds through July 7, per LSEG data reported by Reuters.
What are leases not yet commenced and why do they matter?
They are signed data center leases that have not started, so they are disclosed in notes but not yet on the balance sheet. Five hyperscalers disclose about $1.1 trillion of them, roughly 2.3 times their combined $480B of debt.
Which AI infrastructure borrower shows the most credit stress?
Oracle. Press reports say S&P cut it to BBB- in July 2026, its five-year credit default swap spread rose from 144 to 215 basis points between January and late July, and its long-dated bonds were yielding about 8.4% in early October 2026.
BlockWest Research reports are built from public filings, company disclosures and third-party data providers named in each report. Figures are point-in-time and are not updated after publication unless noted. This is research and commentary, not investment advice. Spotted an error? Email the desk via the contact page.