As a debt-fueled AI investment boom takes off, especially in cloud and data centers, many are worried that a tech bubble is forming in the global economy.
Big Tech has been rushing to sell corporate bonds lately. Five companies — Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. — have raised $93 billion this year, more than the previous three years combined.
Adding to the concerns, companies are indulging in some creative accounting. Meta Platforms sealed a $27 billion financing package in late October for its massive data center in rural Louisiana, using a joint venture structure with private lender Blue Owl Capital Inc. to keep the borrowing off-balance-sheet and its pristine credit rating intact. This kind of financial engineering is getting increasingly common.
But a flood of new issues alone doesn’t mean we are entering a euphoric phase. Bond traders have not lost their cool yet.
Here is one data point: At the beginning of the year, blue-chip tech companies were able to sell bonds more cheaply than their peers. This is no longer the case, a recognition perhaps that billions of dollars of new supplies will be hitting the pipeline. According to Morgan Stanley, a whopping $2.9 trillion will be spent on data centers through 2028. Big Tech can only pay for roughly half of this capital expenditure with cash flows. The rest will have to be funded externally.
And there’s differentiation at the company level. Oracle is by far the most aggressive hyperscaler. Capital expenditure at the software database firm is expected to reach 138% of its operating cash flow next year, well exceeding runner-up Meta’s 84%. Investors are taking notice: Among investment-grade tech firms, Oracle’s bond spread has widened the most this year.
Partnering up with private credit lenders to finance data centers is no doubt a concern, but so far, the bond market is still able to distinguish who the issuer really is and price in the risk of off-balance-sheet financing accordingly. For instance, the 25-year issue for Meta’s Louisiana project pays a handsome 6.6%, about a percentage point higher than the tech firm’s corporate bonds of similar tenor. In fact, its coupon is in line with that of the average junk bond, despite an A+ rating from S&P Global. In other words, data center buildouts are expensive if Big Tech decides to keep projects off their books.
For the time being, this is a lenders’ market. Companies harboring big AI ambitions are keen to scale up fast, and borrowers don’t want to haggle over minute loan terms for months on end for fear that they will fall behind in the tech race. This dynamic, in turn, keeps credit markets grounded.
In recent weeks, the narrative over AI has shifted from what artificial general intelligence is and whether it’s achievable, to how to pay for the trillions of dollars of investment the likes of Sam Altman demand. There’s even worry that OpenAI Inc. might need a government bailout some day.
Before being alarmist, though, let’s hear what creditors are saying. They are still demanding extra yield to fund the AI infrastructure buildout. It’s a sign that we are not in a bubble yet.
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