* Analysts expect increased debt issuance by hyperscalers

for AI infrastructure

* BofA raises 2026 hyperscaler debt forecast to $175

billion

* Amazon's ( AMZN ) bond sale highlights strong investor demand

for hyperscaler debt

By Matt Tracy

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - Analysts anticipate a

higher supply of debt being raised by the Big Five hyperscaler

companies this year as they race to build out their data center

infrastructure, following Amazon's ( AMZN ) near-record bond

sale last week of roughly $54 billion in investment-grade

bonds.

Hyperscalers, which operate vast data centers and other

infrastructure to facilitate AI training and deployment, have

been raising debt to finance data centers needed to fuel the

boom in AI.

"There continues to be an expectation of a lot of capital to

be raised in this sector," said John Servidea, co-head of

investment-grade debt capital markets at JPMorgan, which led the

Amazon ( AMZN ) deal.

"Whether it's the companies' publicly stated capex budgets,

or whether it's various banks' estimates of the amount of

hyperscaler issuance, if you look at all of those, a realistic

expectation would be that at some point there's more," Servidea

added.

Analysts at BofA Global Research on Friday raised their forecast

for the hyperscalers' new debt in 2026 to $175 billion from $140

billion. In early February, Barclays analysts said that U.S.

investment-grade corporate bond issuance could be greater than

$2 trillion in 2026, which they said "would exceed even the

post-COVID record levels seen in 2020."

The five major AI hyperscalers - Amazon ( AMZN ), Alphabet's Google

, Meta, Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Oracle

- issued $121 billion in U.S. corporate bonds last year, versus

an average $28 billion per year between 2020 and 2024, according

to a January report by BofA Securities. Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Oracle

declined to comment, while the other companies did not

immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hyperscalers made up four of the five biggest ⁠U.S. high-grade

bond deals in ⁠2025, according to a ​December report by MUFG

analysts. Most of those took place in the second half of the

year.

Oracle sold $18 billion in bonds in September. This was

followed in October by Meta's $30 billion deal and November

deals ‍from Alphabet ($17.5 billion) and Amazon ( AMZN ) ($15 billion).

This year saw a $31.51 billion global bond raise by Alphabet in

February, which included a rare 100-year "century" bond as part

of the deal.

Most recently, Amazon ( AMZN ) raised about $37 billion across 11

tranches in the U.S. bond market on March 10. This was followed

the next day by a 14.5 billion euro-denominated ($16.8 billion)

bond raise by the company.

The overwhelming demand - nearly four times the total amount

sold - for Amazon's ( AMZN ) bond sale underlines investor appetite for

debt from the major hyperscalers.

Market participants believe the actual and expected debt

raise by hyperscalers will keep forecasts for potential

record-breaking overall U.S. corporate debt issuance on track,

despite quiet days in the primary market preceding and following

the escalation of conflict on February 28 between Iran and

U.S.-Israeli forces.

"It's fertile ground right now in capital markets, and

you're also in the first half of the year," said George

Catrambone, head of fixed income, Americas, at asset manager

DWS.