Amazon borrows $17.5B from banks to fuel AI infrastructure spending

Amazon has signed a deal to borrow $17.5 billion from a group of financial lenders including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and BofA Securities, according to Bloomberg. The deal comes just two days after Amazon raised $14 billion through a Canadian bond sale, bringing its total new financing to roughly $31.5 billion in 48 hours. The loan is structured as a delayed draw term loan, meaning Amazon can draw down the funds on its own timeline rather than taking the full sum upfront, giving it flexibility in how and when the money gets deployed. While the funds are earmarked for "general corporate purposes," analysts expect the bulk to go toward AI infrastructure—data centers, custom chips, and cloud expansion.

Amazon is far from alone in this debt-fueled push. About a week ago, Alphabet announced plans to raise $80 billion through a stock sale designed to fund investments while maintaining a healthy balance sheet. Meta also announced plans to raise $30 billion in a bond sale, its largest ever. The scale of borrowing is striking even by Silicon Valley standards. The question investors and analysts increasingly ask: is the spending necessary, and will the returns ever justify it? Companies are burning through exorbitant sums to keep pace in the AI arms race, leveraging historic capex and climbing debt to fund chips and data centers.