Morgan Stanley Sees AI Debt Nearly Doubling to $570 Billion in 2026: Bonds Now Fund the Buildout

My take: Hyperscalers (the mega-companies that hold up the cloud) need hundreds of billions in infrastructure every year, and since they do not want to sell shares (stocks) of their own company to pay for it, they borrow by issuing bonds (debt). Morgan Stanley estimates that global AI-linked debt will reach $570 billion in 2026, four times the prior year. And that makes me think: the AI race is no longer paid with venture capital, now it is paid on a giant credit card. The scale of the commitment is historic, but the question absent from every PowerPoint deck is who absorbs that risk if returns take longer than expected. I believe in AI with all my heart, but the math of debt does not borrow from optimism. Sure, that is my opinion.