The ambitions of technology giants in the field of artificial intelligence make one dizzy: Alphabet launches a 100-year loan, while Oracle raises $25 billion. In total, the American giants in this sector pledge to invest about $600 billion in 2026. Isn’t that enough to place the American economy and the stock market hostage to their ambitions and dreams?

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 18:59

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is seeking to convince investors that it will be at the head of an artificial intelligence empire a century from now. On Tuesday, February 10, the Silicon Valley giant offered a 100-year loan in the British currency (pound sterling) to investors.

A step described by the Financial Times as “very rare” and falls within the framework of Alphabet’s efforts, since the beginning of February, to borrow more than $20 billion to finance its ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence.

Google has been dreaming of artificial intelligence for a hundred years

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

Austria launched this type of borrowing several times, and was able to raise more than two billion dollars in 2017. In the same year, the prestigious University of Oxford succeeded in raising 25 million pounds in the same way. “The benefit for investors is that they get - in theory - a guarantee of an annual return over this period,” explains Alexander Dryden.

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A commitment over a hundred years may seem like a relatively short period in the history of a country or even a university like Oxford, which was founded more than 800 years ago. Google does not play in the same category. “It is an extremely ambitious bond issue for a company that has not yet celebrated its 30th anniversary. It is offering a financial transaction that is three times its age,” notes Alexander Dryden.

This seems more daring, in the opinion of this expert, because Alphabet is a technological giant. “You may be a dominant player today, but technology is, by its very nature, a sector that is evolving very quickly,” emphasizes Alexander Dryden. It is impossible to know what the technological world will look like in a century, and whether Alphabet will withstand all the upcoming changes.

Evidence of the reluctance of technology giants to entice investors with this type of loan is that the last group in this sector to take this step was Motorola in 1997. At that time, the brand was one of the 20 largest technology companies in the world, and was able to raise $300 million. “At that time, Motorola was the number one mobile phone brand in the United States. Just one year later, Nokia overthrew it, and in 2001 Apple launched the iPhone,” Mike Berry, the famous investor and one of the first to bet on the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, details in a post on the X platform.

But for Google, all the importance lies in these two letters AI (Artificial Intelligence). “With this loan, the group wants to stabilize its investments in time for the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure, because it is a structural transformation that will take time,” Alexander Dryden analyzes.

“The Magnificent Seven” is a little less wonderful

Alphabet is not the only one seeking to raise billions of dollars from financial markets. Oracle, the American information server giant, succeeded in borrowing $25 billion to finance its own ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence, 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 resort to debt to finance themselves is new for technology giants,” confirms Alexandre Paradis, head of market analysis at IG France. Until now, big tech companies have been scooping from their “war coffers.”

However, it still has the necessary funds. But "borrowing conditions are attractive for them. Investors are still rushing to lend money to these major companies," explains Alexander Paradis.

This optimism allows AI giants to preserve their savings. This is important for Alphabet, Meta, and others, because their “war tank” constitutes “important reserves in the event of unexpected emergencies,” according to the experts surveyed. If, for example, the results of one of these giants disappoint the financial markets, he can use this money to buy back his own shares to avoid a collapse in their price on the stock exchange.

But resorting to religion has begun to profoundly change the resilience of those aspiring to control the world of artificial intelligence. “The Magnificent Seven are becoming less and less wonderful,” Alexander Dryden concludes.

So far, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia have combined all the ingredients to attract investors: profits, little debt, and promising prospects. Resorting to borrowing means that its financial health in the long term has become more fragile. The experts interviewed suggest that as debt continues to accumulate, some of these players may end up exiting the game.

Is the American economy a hostage?

One reason is the spending race. “In 2026, major technology companies intend to spend $600 billion, compared to about $370 billion in 2025, and the number did not exceed $100 billion in 2021,” Alexander Paradis recounts. The lion's share of these investments goes to artificial intelligence. Then there is a feverish race. “For the first time, there is real competition between them, after each had previously had its own specialization: Tesla in cars, Facebook in social networks, and Alphabet with its Google engine,” notes Alexander Paradis. A confrontation that will inevitably have no losers at the end.

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

“These tech giants’ investments in AI represent a growing share of US GDP,” notes Alexandre Paradis. Scientific research in the United States has also become “more and more focused on artificial intelligence,” according to what the New York Times monitors.

Thus, this frantic race forward means linking the fate of the American economy more and more to the success of artificial intelligence projects launched by Silicon Valley giants. However, “there is still no real impact of AI on companies,” notes Alexander Dryden.

In this sense, the US economy depends on the promises made by GBT Chat and its peers, and with the blessing of the White House, which has made these major companies “the technological arm of the economic competition with China,” as Alexandre Paradis points out.

It's the perfect combination - a feverish investment race and political support - to turn these major companies into "too big to fail," according to this specialist. That is, the public authorities will not allow it to go bankrupt because the consequences will be very serious for the country and its economy.

For the experts interviewed, from now on we must truly hope that the promises of artificial intelligence will be fulfilled. Because, in the opposite case, the United States will find itself facing an unprecedented situation: companies that have become too powerful to fail, even though they sold illusions. Will our time be in a hundred years, when the loan launched by Alphabet matures, to evaluate the outcome?

French text: Sébastien Saibet | Arabic text: Hussein Amara

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