JPMorgan forecasts technology bond sales to exceed $500B in 2026

Technology companies are on track to flood the bond market with more than half a trillion dollars in new debt this year, according to JPMorgan. That $500B figure would make tech responsible for roughly 20% of all US bond sales in 2026, a share that eclipses even the sector’s 14% peak during the dot-com boom. The difference between now and 1999? These companies are actually generating enormous cash flows. They’re just spending even faster. The AI infrastructure arms race is driving the borrowing binge JPMorgan’s forecast sits within a broader projection for the US investment-grade bond market, which the bank expects to hit a record $1.81 trillion in total issuance this year. That would top the previous high of $1.76 trillion set in 2020, when companies rushed to secure cheap pandemic-era financing. Three forces are converging to push tech firms toward the debt markets at this scale. The most obvious: capital expenditures tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure. Building data centers capable of training and running large language models requires spending measured in tens of billions per company, and even the richest firms on earth are finding it easier to borrow than to fund e...