AI can become transformative infrastructure without rewarding every company—and every bond investor—financing its construction. When Big Tech began turning to the bond market to finance its great AI buildout, my first thought was relatively simple. Perhaps borrowing allowed these companies to preserve cash, maintain strategic flexibility, and continue returning capital to shareholders rather than paying for every data center and GPU directly from their own balance sheets. But as I have been watching the AI arms race intensify—with the largest technology companies spending ever larger sums to secure chips, data centers, electricity, land, and computing capacity—I began to think about the other side of that trade. What happens if this competition eventually produces clear winners and losers? The question is not whether AI succeeds. Its industrial potential can be big. But an industry can succeed spectacularly while some of the companies financing that success earn disappointing returns. ...
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