The bond market is charging hyperscalers an AI premium before the equity market seems to care

Reuters [says](https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/corporate-bond-buyers-get-picky-with-flood-ai-debt-2026-09-22/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) spreads on AI-linked corporate debt are around 115 bps right now vs 78 bps for the broader market, while hyperscaler debt issuance is expected to hit $420B next year, up 60%. These are some of the strongest borrowers in the market, so this doesn't really look like default risk. Bond buyers are mostly getting pickier because of how much debt keeps coming and how hard it still is to know what the return on all this AI capex looks like.

Kind of an interesting split. Equities keep rewarding the buildout while bond investors are starting to make the same companies pay more to finance it. If that spread keeps widening, cost of capital eventually becomes part of the AI margin story too. Anyone factoring this into their hyperscaler valuations yet? Reuters reported the wider AI-debt spreads and projected $420B of hyperscaler issuance for 2027 today.