Key Takeaways
- Big US technology companies are tapping the European corporate bond market to fund the AI infrastructure buildout, displacing financials and industrials as top issuers.
- This year, Amazon’s euro debt sale and Alphabet’s Swiss franc deal set records in their local markets.
- While hyperscaler debt is seen as high quality, the risks to the corporate bond market from any AI bubble collapse have also grown.
Big Tech has come to the European bond market with record-sized debt sales and it’s changing the landscape of corporate bond investing.
In an effort to diversify their funding sources for their massive AI infrastructure projects, Alphabet GOOG and Amazon AMZN have issued large amounts of debt in Europe this year. Amazon’s EUR 14.5 billion debut in March set a record for the euro corporate bond market, and Alphabet’s 3 billion Swiss franc deal was the largest corporate borrowing ever for Switzerland.
Thanks to these deals, “the market’s composition… has changed significantly," says Shreena Dasani, trader at Neuberger Berman. “The European market is no longer purely European.”
The hyperscalers’ issuance has driven the share of US companies among the Morningstar Eurozone Corporate Bond Index to 20.12%. At the start of the year, they accounted for 19.58%.
“The five largest technology companies issued more EUR [investment grade] debt in the first quarter of 2026 than they did in all previous years combined,” Dasani says.
Record-Setting Bond Sales by Big Tech
Up until 2026, the investment grade corporate bond market has seen issuance dominated by financial and industrial companies. With this shift, the technology sector now accounts for 4.82% of the Morningstar Eurozone Corporate Bond Index portfolio, up from 3.97% at the end of last year.
The landscape has changed with the onset of the AI boom. Prior to this year, Big Tech had been able to rely on internal cash flows to fund investment. But with the scale of the capex required for the data center buildout, these companies have turned to outside investors, primarily to the bond market, and increasingly to European investors.
According to Bloomberg, in the first half of 2026, there were 25 tranches of bonds issued in euros or Swiss francs by Alphabet and Amazon. The outstanding amount totals about EUR 17.50 billion in euros and CHF 6.26 billion in Swiss francs. Amazon is the largest issuer in 2026, followed by Alphabet. Google’s parent company had issued bonds in euros for the first time in April last year, when it raised EUR 6.75 billion across five maturities ranging between 2029 and 2054. It then raised another EUR 6.50 billion in November.
However, this trend is now gaining momentum both in the euro-denominated bond market and in the Swiss franc-denominated bond market.
“Amazon’s EUR 14.5 billion debut in March set a record for the euro corporate bond market, while Alphabet and Amazon’s recent CHF mega deals already account for around 3.5% of the Swiss corporate index,” says Sven Wagner, senior portfolio manager for Swiss fixed income at ZKB unit Swisscanto.
The CHF corporate bond market has experienced significant growth in recent years with the corporate segment of the Swiss Bond Index growing 45% over the past 10 years. It now exceeds CHF 160 billion thanks in part to hyperscaler debt, according to Swisscanto.
The risk premiums—that is, the spread relative to risk-free bonds—on Big Tech issuances in the Swiss market were in line with those in the European market.
“Amazon’s inaugural CHF issue in 2026, across tenors from 3 to 25 years, priced at spreads broadly in line with EUR and clearly above USD, underlining that CHF has become a fully-fledged, strategically relevant funding market,” Wagner adds.
Hyperscalers Now Dominate ‘Reverse Yankee’ Bonds
Statistics show hyperscalers becoming dominant in debt issued by US companies in euros or Swiss francs. These bonds are colloquially referred to as “reverse Yankee” bonds—the opposite of “Yankee bonds,” which are issued by foreign companies in the United States in dollars.
Hyperscalers’ push into this market is a significant and structural shift, says Carlo De Luca, head of asset management at Gamma Capital Markets.
“For years, we were accustomed to Big Tech companies reducing the number of shares outstanding through buybacks,” says De Luca. Now, AI financing no longer relies solely on equity and free cash flow, but also on the credit market. In this context, it is interesting to note that Alphabet and Amazon, which were virtually absent until recently, are becoming major issuers in the European corporate bond market as well.
Since 2025, international euro-denominated bond issuance surged as companies capitalized on historically tight corporate spreads, favorable cost differentials and an AI-driven investment boom. According to the European Central Bank, international issuance in euros for debt financing—including both bonds and loans—rose by around 30% in 2025 compared with 2024, exceeding USD 1.1 trillion, the highest level since the euro’s inception. This increase was driven by strong international bond issuance denominated in euros, which grew by nearly 50%.
“Hyperscalers have emerged as major ‘reverse Yankee’ issuers, tapping European credit markets at record scale to fund AI-driven infrastructure capex,” says Swisscanto’s Wagner. He expects euro and Swiss franc issuance by hyperscalers to remain “structurally high” as tech companies diversify funding sources and match long-dated investment needs in data centers and AI infrastructure.
Hyperscalers have emerged as major ‘reverse Yankee’ issuers, tapping European credit markets at record scale to fund AI-driven infrastructure capex.
Sven Wagner, Swisscanto
Why Hyperscalers Chose the European Market
AI hyperscalers’ decision to borrow in Europe reflects a calculated effort to diversify funding sources, mitigate currency risk, and deepen its integration into the European financial ecosystem.
But the appeal of the euro and Swiss franc markets extends beyond marginal funding cost advantages. “American ‘Big Tech’ did not choose the European market randomly,” says De Luca.
“Hyperscalers are going where they find a natural base of long-term investors, such as insurance companies, pension funds, bond managers, and European and Swiss institutional investors,” he adds. “This is a very interesting point because, while Europe struggles to develop its own technology leaders, a portion of its pension and insurance savings ends up financing US cloud and AI infrastructure.”
American ‘big tech’ did not choose the European market randomly.
Carlo De Luca, Gamma Capital Markets
De Luca says that an investment-grade bond issued by Alphabet or Amazon can be very attractive because it offers high credit quality, liquidity, significant size, and a broad maturity curve—even extending to 30 or more years.
“In this sense, the European market is not just an alternative source of financing but becomes a sort of ‘capital reservoir’ to fund the AI investment cycle in the US,” he says.
Moreover, it’s cheaper for US companies to borrow in euros and swap back in US dollars, due to the difference in interest rates. By issuing reverse Yankee bonds and exchanging them for dollars via swaps, tech giants obtain immediate liquidity in USD at a lower overall cost than a direct issuance.
A New Opportunity for European Bond Investors
Hyperscalers’ reverse Yankee bonds allow European investors to access new, very high-quality debt and diversify their portfolio in a European investment-grade market that is often concentrated in financials, utilities, and traditional industrials.
The credit quality of bonds issued by hyperscalers is high. Bonds issued by Alphabet and Apple have an S&P rating of AA+ on a scale where AAA indicates the highest level of creditworthiness. Amazon’s bonds have a rating of AA.
But there are also risks. “If AI capital expenditures continue to grow, the market could face new waves of supply, putting pressure on spreads and crowding out other European issuers,” says Gamma’s De Luca.
What if the AI Bubble Bursts?
Thanks to their high credit quality and liquidity, hyperscalers’ bonds in euros and Swiss francs are generally considered safe investments. However, the situation can reverse if the AI bubble bursts—also, the correlation of these bonds with AI stocks can increase.
“If the market were to question the return on investments in data centers, chips, and the cloud, we could see simultaneous pressure on stock multiples, widening of CDS spreads, and widening of other spreads,” says De Luca. CDS, or credit default swaps are financial derivatives used as an insurance policy against borrower default. If there are fears that the AI bubble will burst, CDS spreads may widen because the market demands a higher premium to insure against the borrower defaulting.
