Five Hyperscalers Issued $218.1 Billion in Bonds Through Early October 2026

Five hyperscalers issued $218.1 billion in investment-grade bonds through early October 2026, more than in all of 2025, as credit-protection trading tied to AI companies also expanded.

The five companies issued $107.3 billion in investment-grade bonds during 2025. The 2026 figure covers issuance through early October.

Five-year credit default swap (CDS) spreads on Oct. 21 were 331 basis points for Oracle, 80 basis points for Amazon and 56 basis points for Microsoft. A CDS is a contract in which a buyer pays for protection against a specified credit event. Its spread measures the cost of that protection; trading volume measures activity in the contracts.

Nvidia single-name CDS trading totaled about $640 million over the six months from Sept. 2025 through March 2026. It reached $6.9 billion in the following six-month period. Jigar Patel, Barclays director of credit research, described the increase at a Sept. 17 public discussion: “In the most recent six-month period, that ballooned to 6.9 billion.”

The Nvidia total covers a six-month period for one company. It is a different measure from weekly AI-linked CDS trading that topped $9 billion in September. Bond issuance, CDS spreads and CDS trading volumes describe separate parts of the credit market: borrowing through bonds, the cost of credit protection and activity in protection contracts, respectively.