The ambitions of the tech giants in AI are dizzying: Alphabet is launching a century loan, while Oracle has raised $25 billion. In total, the American titans of the sector promise to invest nearly 600 billion dollars by 2026. Enough to take the American economy and the stock market hostage?

Published on: 02/10/2026 - 6:45 p.m.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, wants to convince investors that it will be at the head of an AI empire in a century. The Silicon Valley giant offered a 100-year loan in sterling to investors on Tuesday February 10.

An approach described as "very rare" by the Financial Times and which is part of Alphabet's effort to raise more than 20 billion dollars in early February to finance its ambitions in artificial intelligence.

Google dreams of AI over 100 years

“Usually, it is states or universities that launch 100-year loans,” confirms Alexander Dryden, a financial markets specialist at the University of London who previously worked for the investment bank JP Morgan.

Austria has launched this type of loan several times and was able to raise more than two billion dollars in 2017. The same year, the prestigious University of Oxford managed to raise 25 million pounds in the same way.

“The interest for investors is to obtain, in theory, the guarantee of an annual return over this period,” explains Alexander Dryden.

Committing to 100 years may seem relatively short in the history of a state or even a university like Oxford, founded more than 800 years ago. Google does not play in the same league. “This is a very ambitious bond issue for a company which has not yet celebrated its 30th anniversary. It offers a security whose duration is still three times longer than its own,” notes Alexander Dryden.

It is all the more daring, according to this expert, because Alphabet is a Tech giant. “It may be a dominant player today, but technology is, in essence, a sector that evolves very quickly,” assures Alexander Dryden. It's impossible to know what the technological world will look like a century from now and whether Alphabet will withstand all the changes to come.

Read also Nvidia and OpenAI agreement: the underside of an extraordinary investment

Proof that the Tech giants are reluctant to seduce investors with this type of loan: the last group in the sector to have risked it was Motorola in 1997. The brand represented one of the 20 largest Tech companies in the world at that time, and had thus raised 300 million dollars. “Motorola was then the number 1 brand in the field of cell phones in the United States. A year later, Nokia dethroned it and in 2001, Apple launched the iPhone,” explains Mike Burry on X, the famous investor who was one of the first to speculate on the subprime crisis in 2008.

But for Google, it's all in these two letters: AI. “With this loan, the group wants to make its investments long-term in order to develop infrastructure for artificial intelligence, because it is a structural change that will take time,” analyzes Alexander Dryden.

The “Magnificent 7” a little less magnificent

Alphabet is not the only one wanting to raise billions of dollars on the financial markets. Oracle, the American computer server giant, managed to borrow $25 billion to finance its own AI ambitions in early February.

In 2025, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle borrowed $125 billion to build AI infrastructure, such as data centers, in the United States.

“This use of debt to finance themselves is new for Tech giants,” says Alexandre Baradez, head of market analysis at IG France. Until now, Big Tech was digging into its war chest.

However, they still benefit from the necessary funds. But, “the borrowing conditions are advantageous for them. Investors are still rushing to lend money to these Big Tech,” assures Alexandre Baradez.

Also read: Google vs ChatGPT: the stock market grim reaper

This optimism allows the AI ​​behemoths to keep their nest egg. This is important for Alphabet, Meta and the others because their war chest constitutes “significant reserves in the event of unexpected problems”, assure the experts interviewed. If, for example, the results of one of these giants were to disappoint the financial markets, it could use these funds to buy back its own shares in order to prevent their price from falling on the stock market.

But this recourse to debt is profoundly changing the economic solidity of these aspiring masters of the world of AI. “The Magnificent Seven are becoming less and less magnificent,” summarizes Alexander Dryden. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia have until now combined all the advantages for investors: profits, little debt and attractive prospects. Recourse to borrowing means that their longer-term financial health becomes fragile. By falling into debt, some of these players could end up staying out of business, say the experts interviewed.

The American economy held hostage?

One of the reasons is the race to spend. “For 2026, Big Tech plans to spend 600 billion dollars, compared to around 370 billion in 2025 and barely 100 billion in 2021,” lists Alexandre Baradez. The lion's share of these investments concerns AI. There is therefore a bidding war and "for the first time, there is real competition between them, whereas previously, they each had their specialty, with Tesla in cars, Facebook in social networks and Alphabet with its Google search engine", notes Alexandre Baradez. A confrontation at the end of which there will inevitably be losers.

This race for investments and financing also "increasingly links the American economy to the fate of a few large groups", affirms Alexandre Baradez. The “risk is that these companies will take the American economy hostage,” warns Alexander Dryden.

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“Investments in AI by these Tech giants represent an increasingly significant share of American GDP,” emphasizes Alexandre Baradez. Scientific research is also becoming increasingly AI-centric in the United States, notes the New York Times.

This mad rush forward thus increasingly amounts to linking the fate of the American economy to the success of the AI ​​projects of the Silicon Valley giants. However, “for the moment there is no real benefit from AI for businesses,” notes Alexander Dryden.

The American economy thus depends on the promises of ChatGPT & Co. With the blessing of the White House which has established these Big Tech as a “technological arm of the economic rivalry with China”, underlines Alexandre Baradez.

A perfect cocktail - increased investment and policy support - to transform these Big Tech into "too big too fail", affirms this specialist. That is to say that the public authorities will not let them go bankrupt because the consequences would be too serious for the country and its economy.

For the experts interviewed, we must now really hope that the promises of AI materialize. Because otherwise, the United States will be faced with an unprecedented situation: companies that have become too powerful to fail by selling pipe dreams. See you in 100 years, at the end of the loan launched by Alphabet, to take stock?

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