Amazon raises £4.25 billion in debut sterling bond sale for AI

Amazon raises £4. 25 billion in debut sterling bond sale for AI Amazon raises £4. 25 billion in debut sterling bond sale for AI · Quartz · Getty Images / Picture Alliance Cris Tolomia Wed, September 9, 2026 at 7:35 PM GMT+2 2 min read AMZN GBP=X GOOG On Wednesday, Amazon netted £4.

25 billion ($5. 76 billion) through its debut sterling bond offering, coming in just above early targets, as hyperscalers keep turning to bond markets beyond U. S.

borders to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to Reuters. Total orders reached £10. 65 billion by the time books closed, retreating from a peak of around £12 billion after banks moved to tighten spreads, according to Reuters.

The structure allocated £1. 25 billion to the shortest three-year portion, with the remaining three tranches — maturing in six, twelve, and nineteen years — each sized at £1 billion. Yields ranged from around 5.

2% on the three-year tranche to 6. 7% on the 19-year issue. JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, HSBC, and NatWest managed the sale, according to Bloomberg .

Investor demand covered the offering about 2. 5 times, well below the roughly fivefold demand Alphabet saw when it raised £5. 5 billion in sterling debt in February, according to Reuters.

Gordon Shannon, partner at TwentyFour Asset Management, said the weaker reception reflected growing concerns about the pace of hyperscaler borrowing. "It does show that demand is not unlimited," Shannon said. With sterling now in the mix, Amazon has extended its currency footprint beyond the dollar.

The company has gone to the euro, Swiss franc, and Canadian dollar markets earlier in 2026, and Bloomberg places it at the head of all hyperscalers in bond issuance this year, with cumulative sales equivalent to nearly $100 billion once Wednesday's transaction is counted. Hyperscalers as a group have collectively sold more than $200 billion in debt so far this year, a figure that more than doubles their total issuance for all of 2025, according to Reuters, which cited LSEG data. The European Central Bank warned earlier in September that the push into the euro-zone bond market by hyperscalers could crowd out other borrowers and drive up their financing costs.

Amazon's debt issuance is part of a broader push by major technology companies to fund AI infrastructure through bond markets . Amazon's capital expenditure budget for 2026 is set at $200 billion, up from $131 billion in 2025, with data centers, chips, and supporting hardware accounting for the bulk of those outlays. Combined AI outlays from Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta are on track to exceed $700 billion this year.