Spending on AI is increasingly fueled by debt, Goldman Sachs says

• Goldman Sachs warned AI spending is increasingly debt-financed,slightly weakening corporate credit quality. The S&P 500 set a new all-time high driven in part by AI spending from Big Tech. Nvidia, Palantir, and Amazon rose yesterday.

The S&P 500 rose to a new all-time high yesterday, up slightly to hit 6,715. AI stocks led the way, again, with Palantir up 1.1%, Nvidia rising 0.91%, and Amazon climbing by 0.81%.

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In the absence of macro jobs data, a result of the U.S. government shutdown, traders are piling into AI stocks, ING told clients this morning: “Financial market volatility is falling across the board, partly driven by the U.S. government shutdown and the delay to key data releases such as the September jobs data. Instead, investors remain transfixed by the AI-driven rally in megacap tech shares, which shows no signs of slowing.” S&P futures were up 0.12% this morning, premarket.

Stocks are benefiting from the massive amount of capital expenditure (capex) coming from companies that are investing heavily in AI. Wedbush’s Dan Ives told clients in a note this morning: “For now, AI is being driven by a handful of U.S. Big Tech players spending almost $350 billion on capex this year with now the cavalry coming as more enterprises and governments from around the world get into the AI spending game.

“The Middle East is a perfect example as now Saudi and UAE are diving into the deep end of the pool with Nvidia and U.S. hyperscalers set to build out massive AI-driven data centers to fuel the use cases for the coming years.”

But where is all that money coming from, exactly?

Goldman Sachs notes that, increasingly, it is coming from debt. Over the past three years, most capex came from the cash sitting on tech companies’ balance sheets. But now those companies are increasingly borrowing money to fund AI build-out. 

“These AI-related issuers have accounted for $141 billion in corporate credit issuance in 2025 to date, eclipsing full-year 2024 gross supply of $127 billion,” Lotfi Karoui and his colleagues wrote in a note seen byFortune.

The shift will marginally reduce the quality of corporate credit, Karoui wrote. “The read-through for credit markets is, on the margin, negative, in our view. While not yet a cause for alarm, given both the high cash-flow generation and low leverage among large tech companies, the shifting funding mix of capex beyond cash is worth monitoring.”

The note adds to recent talk on Wall Street about the quality of corporate debt. Two auto-industry companies, First Brands and Tricolor, recently collapsed into bankruptcy because they issued too much debt to lenders who thought they were safe. Jim Chanos and Pimco President Christian Stracke have both recently bemoaned cracks in the private credit market. 

Here’s a snapshot of the markets ahead of the opening bell in New York this morning:

• S&P 500 futureswere up 0.12% this morning. The index closed up marginally in its last session at a new high of 6.715. 
• The STOXX Europe 600was up 0.32% in early trading. 
• The U.K.’s FTSE 100was up 0.54% in early trading. 
• Japan’s Nikkei 225was up 1.85%. 
• China’s CSI 300was up 0.45%. 
• The South Korea KOSPIwas up 2.7%. 
• India’s Nifty 50was up 0.11% before the end of the session. 
• Bitcoinrose to $120.1K.

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