Big Tech borrowing overseas reshapes global corporate bond markets

Alphabet and Amazon are turning Europe, Japan and Switzerland into major funding centers for the AI buildout, using overseas bond markets to raise sums that are now large enough to move yields and borrowing conditions across a $40 trillion corporate debt universe.

Amazon’s March euro sale stood out even in a crowded market. The company raised €14.5 billion in an eight-part deal, with investor orders reaching €27.9 billion and maturities stretching from two years to 38 years. The financing was the largest ever in the euro corporate bond market, a sign that hyperscalers can pull deep demand even when they tap foreign currencies far from home.

Alphabet has become just as important to the foreign-currency market. It is already one of the biggest outstanding borrowers in the euro, sterling, Swiss franc and yen corporate bond markets, underscoring how aggressively the largest AI spenders are diversifying funding before capital needs climb even higher.

The immediate appeal is financial. By borrowing abroad, Big Tech companies can match liabilities with global assets, hedge currency exposure and sometimes secure lower borrowing costs than they would find in the United States. But the broader effect is structural: a handful of technology giants are crowding into markets that once played a smaller role in global corporate finance, and those transactions are helping set pricing for everyone else.

That shift is already visible in Europe. Alphabet and Amazon helped push non-financial U.S. corporate borrowing in Europe above €60 billion this year, a record. Earlier in 2025, non-financial U.S. issuers had sold almost €50 billion of euro bonds, up 32% from a year earlier, with names such as Alphabet, Visa, PepsiCo, Fiserv and Verizon all tapping the market.

Demand has been strong enough to keep the market absorbing the flow. U.S. companies raised a record $100 billion in euro bond sales so far in 2025, up from just over $78 billion for all of 2024, reflecting attractive European funding conditions and a willingness by issuers and investors to move away from the dollar.

Market participants say the trend still has room to run. Giulio Baratta, co-head of investment-grade finance at BNP Paribas, said some of these companies could become among the biggest issuers globally in almost any currency within 12 months. Morgan Stanley’s Matteo Benedetto said there was “a wall of currency ready to be deployed into European credit,” a sign that the AI spending wave is no longer just about chips, data centers and power systems. It is reshaping where capital is raised, how it is priced and which markets sit at the center of the next phase of global technology finance.