Nvidia, the world's most valuable chipmaker, returned to the corporate debt market on Monday with a €21.5bn ($25bn) bond offering, its first since 2021. The sale, initially planned at around €17.2bn, was upsized after investor demand surged to more than three times the offering, reaching approximately €73.2bn, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The strong appetite allowed Nvidia to tighten its borrowing costs, locking in relatively cheap long-term financing. The timing was aided by a broader market rally following the announcement of a US-Iran framework deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, which pushed investment-grade credit spreads to their narrowest levels since early February. As oil prices fell below $80, the improved sentiment helped steady credit markets.
Financing the AI Race
Proceeds from the bond sale will be used for general corporate purposes, including repaying and refinancing existing notes, a company spokesperson said. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Robert Schiffman noted that inexpensive long-dated debt lowers Nvidia's weighted average cost of capital and supports its AI investments without threatening its AA credit rating.
Nvidia's last investment-grade bond issuance was in June 2021, when it sold €4.3bn across four maturities. The jump in scale underscores how rapidly its financing needs have grown alongside the data centre build-out and increased demand from hyperscalers. The company has invested €4.3bn in Intel, pledged up to €8.6bn to Anthropic, and contributed €25.8bn to OpenAI's latest funding round.
Nvidia shares closed up 3.5% at $212.45 after the deal, valuing the company at about €4.42tn.
Tech Giants' Borrowing Frenzy
Nvidia is not alone in raising vast sums for AI infrastructure. Meta and Oracle have each issued €21.5bn in bonds this year, while Amazon completed a single €31.8bn deal, the largest US investment-grade offering of the year before Nvidia's sale. For Nvidia, the bond raise also avoids share dilution, giving it greater flexibility as capital commitments mount.
Meanwhile, Alphabet, Google's parent company, opted for equity instead. It priced an upsized €73bn capital raise earlier this month, after originally seeking around €68.9bn. The transaction, which includes an €8.6bn private placement from Berkshire Hathaway, ranks as the largest equity capital raise on record and is intended to fund the group's AI compute expansion. Alphabet has guided 2026 capital expenditure to between €155.1bn and €163.7bn.
However, the equity move came on top of heavy borrowing. According to its own filing, Alphabet raised more than €73.2bn of debt across six major currencies and markets in the first quarter of 2026, taking its total debt balance above €86.1bn.
For European investors and policymakers, the scale of these capital raises highlights the accelerating global race for AI dominance. As the ECB raised rates earlier this year to combat inflation, the cost of borrowing for European tech firms remains a concern. The trend also raises questions about whether European companies can compete with US giants in funding AI infrastructure, especially as the EU's Digital Markets Act imposes new regulatory burdens on big tech.
