Asian banks pour record debt into AI chip and data center boom

Asia’s banks have found their favorite customer, and it runs on GPUs. Taiwanese lenders extended a record NT$4 trillion (approximately $126 billion) in loans during the first seven months of 2026, with much of that money flowing toward the AI supply chain. Follow the money to the fabs The standout figure involves working capital loans. These are the short-term credit lines companies use to keep operations running, such as paying suppliers, buying inventory and covering payroll while orders get filled. For AI supply chain firms linked to TSMC, Nvidia and Microsoft, those loans grew nearly eight times faster than mortgage lending over the same period. The boom is not limited to Taiwan. Across Asia-Pacific, G3 syndicated lending, excluding Japan, reached $171 billion in the first nine months of 2026. That marks a six-year high and an increase of more than 6% year over year. Syndicated loans are big loans split among a group of banks, so no single lender has to carry the entire risk. Data center financing reached about $56 billion year-to-date in 2026. For context, the total for all of 2025 was $26 billion. The Asian data center debt market has climbed to nearly $29 billion since early...