Alphabet ups its Bond Sale to North of $30B as Investor Appetite for AI Bets Heats up

CNBC, Bloomberg, Axios, Reuters contributed to this report.

Alphabet keeps piling debt into the market. What started as a roughly $20 billion offering has swelled to over $30 billion, people familiar with the deal say, after stronger-than-expected demand from investors hunting safe, big-tech paper.

The company pushed into Europe too, selling about £ and Swiss-franc tranches that added roughly $11 billion to the haul, and even floated a rare 100-year sterling bond as part of the package — a striking move that signals how hungry long-duration investors are for paper tied to the AI giants.

Why the borrowing binge? Alphabet told investors last week it plans to spend up to $185 billion on capital expenditures in 2026 as it doubles down on data centers, AI chips and cloud gear. That massive capex plan has the hyperscalers — Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and the like — lining up at the bond market to fund expensive, long-term builds.

Banks and investors say yields on Alphabet’s new bonds are tight — buyers aren’t demanding big extra premiums over Treasuries, treating Google’s parent as a safe credit. That’s helped make the larger deal possible, even as analysts warn that all this borrowing bets on future returns from AI that haven’t fully materialized yet.

Alphabet isn’t alone: Oracle kicked off the year with a $25 billion deal, Meta is prepping its own big sale, and banks expect the tech sector to keep tapping debt markets as capex needs ramp up. The big question now is whether investors will still be this eager when free cash flow starts to feel the strain of heavy spending.

Bottom line: Alphabet’s bond binge shows both how fast Big Tech is spending on AI — and how much trust investors are placing in its long-term pay-off. If the AI boom pays off, lenders look smart; if not, the market could get a lot pickier pretty fast.