Hyperscaler Debt Tracker: How Big Tech Is Paying for AI

Why borrow when you make this much cash?

Because capital spending, or capex, the money spent on data centers, chips and equipment, has caught up with the cash the businesses bring in. What's left after capex is free cash flow. Over the last 12 months:

The 12-month figures flatter Alphabet and Meta, because their spending sped up during the year. Alphabet spent $80.6 billion on capex in the first half, double the $39.6 billion of a year earlier, leaving just $4.3 billion of free cash flow for those six months. Meta's was $15.0 billion. Both have raised their capex plans this year. At that pace there's little cash left over for shareholders without borrowing.

Is Alphabet selling stock?

Yes. Alphabet raised $105.8 billion in the first half, more than any of the others, and returned none of it through buybacks. From its 10-Q cash flow statement:

The new stock comes from a program to sell up to $40 billion of shares in small amounts through ordinary trading, and a sale of 6.25% mandatory convertible preferred stock, which pays a fixed 6.25% dividend and turns into common shares about three years after it was sold, adding to the share count then. After the quarter, Alphabet also sold another $25 billion of notes.

Alphabet went from returning cash to raising it

First half, a year earlierPaying shareholders

• $28.3B of buybacks
• $31.4B borrowed, $18.4B repaid
• No new shares

Net $26.0B paid out

vs

First half, this yearRaising money

• No buybacks
• $56.2B borrowed, $5.3B repaid
• $49.6B of new stock and convertible preferred

Net $86.3B raised

Part of the money is still in the bank. Alphabet's cash and investments rose $34.9 billion over the half, to $155.4 billion, and its net cash is only slightly lower than a year ago. (Its reported $242.5 billion of cash and short-term securities also counts $87.1 billion of stock in other companies, including $80.0 billion of SpaceX shares it can't sell yet.) Alphabet is raising money while investors are willing, ahead of the spending it has planned.

Amazon: from net cash to net debt

A year ago Amazon held $37.3 billion more in cash and investments than it owed. Now it owes $9.6 billion more than it holds. It borrowed $67.0 billion in the first half alone, and its debt more than doubled to $132.5 billion. Amazon spent $173.0 billion on capex over 12 months, $11.6 billion more than its operations brought in, and it pays no dividend and buys back no stock, so the borrowing goes straight into the build.

Meta: no buybacks, and a thin cushion

Meta bought back $22.9 billion of stock in the first half of last year and none in the first half of this year. Its debt nearly tripled to $83.7 billion while its cash and investments rose less, so its net cash fell from $18.2 billion to $6.6 billion. Another year like the last one would put Meta in net debt. For its spending, see Meta's capex guidance and actual spend.

Microsoft: no new borrowing

Microsoft's debt fell, from $43.2 billion to $40.3 billion. It paid for $115.9 billion of capex and $48.7 billion of buybacks and dividends from $182.9 billion of operating cash flow. Its net cash still fell, by $14.9 billion, as money went into other investments and lease payments. Microsoft rents much of its data center capacity on long-term leases, which none of these debt figures count.

Oracle and CoreWeave: where lenders push back

Both had net debt before the build-out sped up, and both spend more than their operations bring in.

• Oracle owes $88.3 billion more than it holds, after free cash flow of −$28.7 billion over 12 months. It has said it doesn't plan more bond sales this year and sold $19.9 billion of new shares in its latest quarter instead. More in Oracle's capex plans.
• CoreWeave's net debt tripled to $29.5 billion, and its bonds now yield over 15%.

Lenders marked both down in the same sell-off, CNBC reported. A credit default swap (CDS) is insurance against a default, priced in basis points, hundredths of a percentage point, a year. The higher the price, the likelier lenders think a default is.

What lenders now charge the two weakest borrowers

15.78%Yield on CoreWeave's 9.75% notes due 2031

1,038CoreWeave five-year CDS, basis points1,000+ is generally read as distress

282Oracle five-year CDS, basis pointsUp about 10% in a week

What it means for your shares

Three numbers matter more to a shareholder than the debt totals.

1. Share counts stopped shrinking. Buybacks reduce the number of shares, so each one owns a bigger slice of the profits. That tailwind is gone at Alphabet and Meta.

For Alphabet that's a swing of about 3 percentage points a year in earnings per share, before any change in profits. The new stock itself is small: $30.5 billion is about 0.7% of Alphabet's roughly $4.4 trillion market value. Most of the swing comes from the buybacks that stopped.

Alphabet's share count went from shrinking to growing

Alphabet, previous year−2.4%

Alphabet, latest year+0.9%

Meta, previous year−1.5%

Meta, latest year−0.2%

Change in diluted shares outstanding, second quarter against the same quarter a year earlier.

2. Interest bills are rising fast, but from a low base. Quarterly interest expense, against the latest quarter's operating income:

For Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, interest is still small next to profits. Microsoft isn't in these two tables because its latest quarter closes its fiscal year and isn't reported on its own; it took on no new debt. For Oracle it takes a fifth of operating income, and CoreWeave made an operating loss in its latest quarter.

3. The price of borrowing splits the group. Compare debt of similar length. Alphabet's latest notes due 2033 pay 5.2%, about 0.7 points above a seven-year US Treasury when they were sold. Oracle's bonds due 2032 yielded 7.24% in the sell-off, and CoreWeave's notes due 2031 yielded 15.78%. The giants can keep borrowing at close to government-bond rates. The smaller builders already pay for their risk.

Our read

Three of the four biggest builders now pay for the AI build-out by borrowing, giving up buybacks, or both. Only Microsoft still pays from its own cash. A year ago the four held $168.5 billion more in cash than they owed. Now it's $88.8 billion.

That isn't a debt crisis for the giants. Their interest bills are small, they borrow at close to government-bond rates, and Alphabet is raising money early rather than because it must. The cost lands on shareholders in a quieter way: per-share earnings no longer get a lift from buybacks, so profits have to grow faster to deliver the same returns. The real credit risk sits with Oracle and CoreWeave, where lenders already charge a premium.

What to check in each quarterly report: whether Amazon's net debt keeps growing, whether Meta's net cash goes negative, and whether Alphabet or Meta restart buybacks. A restart would mean cash flow is catching up with the spending.

For the spending itself, see the hyperscaler AI capex tracker and the next-year capex forecast. For how this compares with the last boom, see AI spending vs the dot-com bubble.

Frequently asked questions

How much debt do the hyperscalers have?

Amazon owes $132.5 billion, Alphabet $100.2 billion, Meta $83.7 billion and Microsoft $40.3 billion, counting bonds, loans and commercial paper but not leases. That's $356.7 billion, up from $155.5 billion a year earlier.

Does Amazon have net debt?

Yes. Its $132.5 billion of debt is $9.6 billion more than its cash and investments. A year earlier it had $37.3 billion more cash than debt.

Is Alphabet selling stock to pay for AI?

Yes. It sold $30.5 billion of common stock and $19.1 billion of convertible preferred stock in the first half of this year, under a program that allows up to $40 billion of share sales, and bought back none.

Has Meta stopped its buybacks?

Meta made no share repurchases in the first half of this year, against $22.9 billion a year earlier. It still pays a dividend.

Limits of this data

• Debt leaves out leases and off-balance-sheet joint ventures, which all six use. True obligations are higher.
• Cash and investments leaves out stakes in other companies, which are large at Alphabet.
• Capex is cash spent on property and equipment. Some companies' headline capex adds finance leases and runs higher. Amazon's own free cash flow measure also subtracts sale proceeds and incentives.
• Oracle and Microsoft use fiscal years that don't match the calendar; each company's figures run to its own latest quarter.
• Bond yields and credit default swap spreads are press-reported snapshots and move daily.

How we built this

All company figures come from 10-Q and 10-K filings through SEC XBRL company facts. Latest quarter-ends are June 30, 2026 for Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave, and August 31, 2026 for Oracle; "a year earlier" is the same date in 2025. Debt is current plus long-term debt, plus commercial paper and short-term borrowings where reported. CoreWeave's latest debt is recourse plus non-recourse debt net of discounts ($35.6 billion of principal before them), from note 10 of its second-quarter 10-Q. Cash and investments is cash and equivalents plus short-term marketable securities; for Alphabet we subtract marketable equity securities ($87.1 billion at the latest quarter-end, $6.0 billion a year earlier), so its year-earlier figure is approximate. Twelve-month cash flows add the latest fiscal year to the current year-to-date and subtract the same period a year earlier. Share counts are weighted-average diluted shares for the quarter. Interest is reported interest expense; for Meta and CoreWeave, interest expense on debt. Alphabet's market value uses its June 30, 2026 close and the share count on its 10-Q cover. Microsoft's latest quarter ends its fiscal year and its annual report gives only full-year share counts and interest, so it's left out of those tables. The seven-year Treasury yield is the Treasury's daily par yield in the week Alphabet sold the notes. We update the tracker after each quarterly report.

Go deeper with member research

The borrowing is the financing side of the AI build-out. Member reports follow where the money goes and who carries the risk:

• Issue 05: NVIDIA Is Building the Credit Market for AI: how GPU capacity is becoming collateral for private credit, insurance balance sheets and securitized debt.
• Issue 03: The AI Depreciation Clock: when this spending reaches earnings, and what it does to margins.
• Issue 02: The AI Capex Shock: where the next infrastructure dollar goes, who keeps the profit and what could break first.