---
title: "Amazon Seeks to Borrow $25 Billion as Investors Grow Wary of AI Debt"
description: "Amazon is returning to the bond market to raise at least $25 billion, adding to a record wave of borrowing by big tech to fund artificial-intelligence data centers. The deal drew strong demand, but it lands as investors turn more selective about the mountain of AI-related debt now piling up in credit markets."
category: "Markets"
category_url: https://boursel.com/category/markets
author: "Marcus Feldman"
published: 2026-07-07T22:37:15.000Z
updated: 2026-07-07T22:37:15.000Z
canonical: https://boursel.com/article/amazon-seeks-to-borrow-25-billion-as-investors-grow-wary-of-ai-debt
tags: ["amazon", "ai", "corporate-debt", "bonds", "credit-markets", "data-centers"]
---
# Amazon Seeks to Borrow $25 Billion as Investors Grow Wary of AI Debt

Amazon is returning to the bond market to raise at least $25 billion, adding to a record wave of borrowing by big tech to fund artificial-intelligence data centers. The deal drew strong demand, but it lands as investors turn more selective about the mountain of AI-related debt now piling up in credit markets.

Amazon is tapping the bond market again, and the size of the ask shows just how expensive the artificial-intelligence build-out has become. The company is raising at least $25 billion in a new bond sale, split across eight tranches with maturities ranging from three to 40 years, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/07/amazon-bond-sale-ai-debt.html). The money will help fund the data centers, chips and power that its AI ambitions require.

## What a bond sale is, and why this one is big

When a company sells bonds, it is borrowing from investors, promising to pay interest and return the principal on a set date. The longest of Amazon's new bonds does not mature until 2066, and was expected to pay roughly 1.45 percentage points more than a comparable US Treasury bond, the extra yield investors demand to lend to a company rather than the government.

The scale is what stands out. Amazon has already raised around $54 billion in bonds this year in the US and Europe, plus more in Canada, and told investors it does not plan to borrow further in 2026, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/07/amazon-bond-sale-ai-debt.html). The borrowing is in service of an enormous spending plan: Amazon has guided to about $200 billion of capital expenditure this year, up sharply from roughly $131 billion in 2025, most of it going toward AI infrastructure.

## The bigger picture: a wave of AI debt

Amazon is not alone. The largest cloud companies, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Oracle, are spending on data centers at a pace that increasingly outstrips even their vast cash flows, and the gap is being filled with borrowing. Analysts at Morgan Stanley have estimated that AI-related bond issuance could nearly double this year toward the region of half a trillion dollars, which would make it one of the biggest forces in the entire corporate-bond market, [as widely reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-07/amazon-returns-to-us-bond-market-to-fund-ai-infrastructure-build).

That concentration is starting to unsettle some investors. "Credit spreads", the extra yield a company pays over Treasuries, are the market's price for risk; when they widen, it means lenders are demanding more to hold a borrower's debt. Bond buyers are growing choosier about long-dated technology debt, wary that so much of it is riding on a single bet, that the tens of billions being poured into AI will earn an adequate return.

## Demand was still there

For all the nervousness, Amazon's deal was well received. Orders reportedly peaked around $62 billion, far more than the amount on offer, before banks trimmed the final size and pricing, [Bloomberg reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-07/amazon-returns-to-us-bond-market-to-fund-ai-infrastructure-build). That is the signature of a still-healthy market: a blue-chip, highly rated borrower like Amazon can raise $25 billion in an afternoon. The caution is directed less at Amazon specifically than at the aggregate, the sheer volume of AI-linked debt arriving at once, and at weaker names further down the quality scale.

Analysts and regulators have also flagged a subtler worry: some data-center financing is being done through off-balance-sheet vehicles and joint ventures funded by private-credit investors, which keeps the borrowing out of headline debt figures. The Bank for International Settlements has cautioned that such structures could add hidden stress if funding conditions tighten.

## Why it matters

The episode captures the central financial question of the AI boom. If the spending pays off, through cloud revenue, software and services, today's borrowing will look like a shrewd land-grab. If returns disappoint, some of the most valuable companies in the world will be left with heavier balance sheets and a long stretch of refinancing to manage. For now, the market is willing to fund the bet, but the widening spreads are a reminder that its patience is not unconditional. This article is informational and not investment advice.

## Sources

- [Amazon raising at least $25 billion in bond sale, won't issue more debt in 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/07/amazon-bond-sale-ai-debt.html)
- [Amazon Fuels AI Debt Boom With Bond Sale of at Least $25 Billion](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-07/amazon-returns-to-us-bond-market-to-fund-ai-infrastructure-build)