Here’s the FT’s breakdown of the debt that OpenAI’s partners have taken on:
The increased use of debt to fund AI is a relatively new development—prior to this year most AI build-out was funded by cash straight from the balance sheets of big tech companies, such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta.
All the companies were contacted for comment.
All that extra investment-grade (IG) corporate debt is having a material effect on the credit markets, a recent research note from BofA analysts Yuri Seliger and Sohyun Marie Lee said.
“This week (the week prior to Thanksgiving) is typically the last week of the year with heavy IG supply. And 2025 supply is ending the year with a bang. We are tracking about $50bn for this week and about $220bn over the prior four weeks – about 70% higher than the typical volume for this time of year,” they said.
“This year … hyperscalers added another $63bn. This suggests the entire increase in supply this year is explained by [debt-funded M&A deals] and hyperscaler activity.”
“The moves have been notable: Oracle’s 5yr CDS has widened by about +60bps to 104bps since late September and CoreWeave by roughly +280bps to around 640bps since September,” Deutsche’s Jim Reid said in a recent note.
“It’s hard to know yet whether this shift will have meaningful long-term implications, but the last few weeks clearly mark a new phase of the AI boom—one in which investors are increasingly looking to hedge their risk, and one where public credit markets are being called upon to fund growing capex needs. It’s not just the hyperscalers’ free cash flow anymore,” he said.
