Fresh off bond sale, Amazon borrows $17.5B from banks as AI spending continues

<p id="speakable-summary" class="wp-block-paragraph">Companies are burning through exorbitant sums of money to keep pace in the AI arms race. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkh0Rc_Ikqs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Debt is climbing</a>. Amidst this flurry of activity, Amazon has signed a deal to borrow some $17.5 billion from a number of financial lenders, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-10/amazon-inks-17-5-billion-loan-in-financing-led-by-citigroup?taid=6a29703f3ef24f000105c6be&amp;utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">according to Bloomberg</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The banks behind the loan <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-secures-175-billion-loan-facility-amid-ai-driven-capex-ramp-2026-06-10/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reportedly</a> include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and BofA Securities. The deal has been characterized as a <a href="https://www.proskauer.com/alert/private-credit-explained-delayed-draw-term-loans" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">delayed draw term loan</a>, meaning Amazon can draw down the funds on its own timeline rather than taking the full sum upfront, giving it flexibility in how and when the money gets deployed.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The loan comes just two days after it was reported that Amazon would also <a href="https://financialpost.com/technology/amazon-raise-7-billion-canada-bond-sale" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">raise $14 billion in a Canadian bond sale</a>, bringing its total new financing to roughly $31.5 billion in the span of roughly 48 hours.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It’s not clear exactly how Amazon plans to spend all the new money. Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-secures-175-billion-loan-facility-amid-ai-driven-capex-ramp-2026-06-10/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">notes that</a> the new loan will be used for “general corporate purposes.” TechCrunch has reached out to Amazon for more information.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Amazon is hardly alone. To fund new AI infrastructure like chips and data centers, companies are leveraging historic capex. Increasingly, companies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/tech-companies-tap-debt-markets-fund-ai-cloud-expansion-2026-06-02/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">are borrowing money</a> to fund their massive AI buildouts. The question investors and analysts are increasingly asking isn’t whether this spending is necessary — it’s whether the returns will ever justify it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The scale of the borrowing is striking even by Silicon Valley standards. About a week ago, Google parent company Alphabet said that it <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/alphabet-plans-to-raise-80-billion-to-pay-for-ai-buildout/?_thumbnail_id=2960152" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">planned to raise $80 billion</a> through a stock sale designed to help “fund its investments in a balanced way while retaining a healthy balance sheet.” Meta has also announced plans to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-seeks-least-25-billion-bond-offering-bloomberg-reports-2025-10-30/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">raise $30 billion in a bond sale</a> — its largest ever.</p>