WASHINGTON, March 17 - Market watchers are now projecting a larger wave of debt issuance from the Big Five hyperscalers this year as the companies press forward with extensive data center spending to support artificial intelligence workloads. The reassessment follows Amazon’s near-record sale last week of roughly $54 billion in investment-grade bonds.
Analysts say the hyperscalers - defined in industry commentary as the platforms that operate extensive data centers and related infrastructure for AI training and deployment - have been tapping the debt markets to finance the capacity they need for the AI cycle. "There continues to be an expectation of a lot of capital to be raised in this sector," said John Servidea, co-head of investment-grade debt capital markets at JPMorgan, which led the Amazon deal. "Whether it’s the companies’ publicly stated capex budgets, or whether it’s various banks’ estimates of the amount of hyperscaler issuance, if you look at all of those, a realistic expectation would be that at some point there’s more," he added.
Research teams have acted on that expectation. Analysts at BofA Global Research on Friday raised their projection for new debt from the hyperscalers in 2026 to $175 billion, up from a prior forecast of $140 billion. Barclays analysts in early February signaled that U.S. investment-grade corporate bond issuance could top $2 trillion in 2026, a pace they noted would exceed even the post-COVID record levels set in 2020.
Data compiled by BofA Securities in January showed the five major hyperscalers - Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle - issued $121 billion in U.S. corporate bonds in 2025, a notable increase from an average of $28 billion per year in the 2020-2024 period. That concentration of issuance has already been visible in the recent high-grade market: hyperscalers comprised four of the five largest U.S. high-grade bond offerings in 2025, with many of those transactions occurring in the second half of the year, according to a December report from MUFG analysts.
Specific large transactions last year included Oracle’s $18 billion sale in September, Meta’s $30 billion deal in October, and November financings by Alphabet ($17.5 billion) and Amazon ($15 billion). This year has seen continued sizable issuance: Alphabet raised $31.51 billion globally in February and included a rare 100-year "century" bond in that package. Amazon most recently brought roughly $37 billion to the U.S. market on March 10 via 11 tranches, and the following day the company sold 14.5 billion euros in notes - roughly $16.8 billion.
The demand backdrop for those deals has been strong. Market reports indicate that interest from investors into Amazon’s recent bond sale was nearly four times the amount ultimately placed, underscoring elevated investor appetite for debt from the principal hyperscalers.
Market participants say the combination of actual issuance already completed and anticipated future borrowing by the hyperscalers supports forecasts that overall U.S. corporate bond issuance could reach record levels. That assessment held even as primary market activity quieted around the time of heightened geopolitical tensions - specifically following the escalation of conflict on February 28 between Iran and U.S.-Israeli forces, which briefly dampened deal flow.
"It’s fertile ground right now in capital markets, and you’re also in the first half of the year," said George Catrambone, head of fixed income, Americas, at asset manager DWS, describing current conditions for corporate bond supply.
The article also included a reference to a market tool, noting that ProPicks AI evaluates Microsoft alongside other companies using a range of financial metrics to generate investing ideas. The reference highlighted that such analytical products exist in the market, but did not provide an assessment tied to the bond issuance discussion.
Overall, the observable pattern of large-scale bond offerings from Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle, combined with revised forecasts from major research desks and strong investor demand, has led analysts and bankers to increase their expectations for hyperscaler debt issuance in the near term.