The cost of insuring Broadcom and Oracle debt against default climbed to records on Thursday as credit investors reprice the risk of the AI borrowing spree, Bloomberg reported. Broadcom’s five-year credit default swaps widened by 3 basis points to a record 136 basis points, according to ICE Data Services, and Oracle’s hit a record close of 261 basis points. Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX are among the borrowers that have priced nearly half a trillion dollars of new debt this year to pay for AI infrastructure, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Broadcom has more borrowing lined up. It is working to arrange more than $50 billion in financing for the custom AI chip it is developing with OpenAI, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, with Apollo and Blackstone among the lenders approached in early talks, according to Investing.com‘s summary of the report. Bloomberg reported the same day that Broadcom is sketching out its next blockbuster deal just days after launching the $60 billion Anthropic debt financing that banks began syndicating on Monday. Broadcom alone may raise about $600 billion to finance computing power in the coming years, Bloomberg calculated.
News of potential new financings from SpaceX and Broadcom, possibly topping $100 billion, pushed credit derivatives on hyperscalers and chipmakers to prices that imply a five-year default risk above 20% for Oracle, about 16% for SpaceX and more than 7% for Nvidia, according to Bloomberg. A measure of SpaceX’s credit risk hit a record for a second straight day after reports of its $40 billion financing for Nvidia chips.
Oracle, which Bloomberg called a key barometer of AI credit risk, is in talks with Apollo and Goldman Sachs to arrange money for a big chip purchase, the Journal reported. Market participants told Bloomberg that could involve a special purpose vehicle that buys the chips and leases them to Oracle, which would likely reduce its near-term borrowing needs and ease pressure on its credit rating.
This year has produced nine US high-grade bond deals of $25 billion or more, the most ever, most of them in tech. “Every new financing announcement feels like another entrant in an auction for investor balance sheet,” Mark Clegg, a senior fixed-income trader at Allspring Global Investments, told Bloomberg. For now, Bloomberg reported, the strain reflects market saturation more than any real deterioration in credit quality, since most of these borrowers are profitable with steady cash flow.
Sources
- Bloomberg via Moneyweb (Caleb Mutua, Preeti Singh, Laura Benitez): AI borrowing spree hammers tech debt in rush to reprice risk (October 9, 2026)
- The Wall Street Journal (Anissa Gardizy, Matt Wirz, Justin Baer): Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX Seek Blockbuster Debt Deals to Pay for AI Chips (October 7, 2026; paywalled, opening read)
- Investing.com: Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX pursue blockbuster debt deals amid AI buildout – WSJ (October 7, 2026)