Big Tech, AI patlamasıyla yoluna devam ediyor: Günün Grafiği

Big Tech is borrowing its way through the AI boom: Chart of the Day

Fri, August 7, 2026 at 1:00 PM GMT+3 2 min read

Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) is borrowing at a historic pace. It is not alone.

Alphabet, Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), and Oracle (ORCL) have issued about $194 billion of bonds this year, nearly twice their combined total for all of 2025. Alphabet's latest sale could add as much as $25 billion more.

Microsoft (MSFT) has not issued a comparable public bond deal this year and is excluded from the chart.

Alphabet received about $115 billion of orders on Thursday, more than four times the potential deal size, according to Bloomberg. Demand topped other recent AI bond offerings from Amazon and SpaceX (SPCX).

The 10-part sale stretches from two-year notes to bonds maturing in 2066. If it reaches $25 billion, Alphabet will have issued nearly $77 billion of debt this year.

The companies leading the AI build-out were already among the world's largest cash generators. Now they are becoming some of its largest corporate borrowers.

Alphabet's core businesses generated nearly $40 billion in cash during the second quarter. But it spent almost $45 billion on data centers, servers, and other long-term equipment, leaving less cash coming in than going out after those investments — known as free cash flow.

The AI arms race has been eating into Big Tech's cash flow, and Alphabet pushed free cash flow to below zero for the first time. That helped send the stock to its worst day in more than a year.

The stock fell another 4% Wednesday after several key AI leadership departures, but Alphabet remains up about 16% this year.

The company is spreading the AI bill across nearly every major source of financing.

During the first six months of 2026, Alphabet issued $51.8 billion of bonds and raised $49.6 billion by selling stock. Another $40 billion stock-sale program remained available at the end of June, following an equity package unveiled as AI spending accelerated.

That marks a sharp reversal.

Alphabet spent $28.3 billion buying back stock during the first six months of 2025. During the same period this year, it bought back none, as the AI spending boom forced Big Tech to rethink stock buybacks.

Borrowing lets the company preserve cash and keep building while spreading the cost over years. But the money is no longer cheap.

The 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) moved back above 5.2% Thursday, lifting the baseline cost of long-term borrowing. Alphabet also offered investors relatively generous yields to attract demand, according to Bloomberg.

The strong order book shows investors remain eager to fund the AI build-out. Shareholders now need to see whether the investment produces enough cash to revive buybacks and limit further borrowing.

Until then, investors should watch whether debt, interest expense, and the share count keep rising.

Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.

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