Microsoft raises 25 billion dollars in its first major bond sale in nine years

Microsoft has sold 25 billion dollars of investment-grade bonds in its first major US debt offering in more than nine years. Bloomberg reported that investor orders reached about 115 billion dollars, showing strong demand even as technology companies issue more debt to support capital-intensive AI expansion.

The offering spans ten tranches with maturities from three to forty years. Microsoft has not described the debt as being earmarked exclusively for AI, so it would be misleading to call this a dedicated AI-infrastructure bond. The practical effect is broader financial capacity while the company continues spending heavily on data centers, accelerators, power and cloud capacity.

Microsoft enters the market with top-tier credit ratings and a large cash position, which makes this issuance different from borrowing by less mature AI companies. Still, the scale matters: even the largest technology companies are increasingly mixing cash flow with long-term debt as the cost of compute infrastructure rises.

For the AI market, the signal is that infrastructure investment is becoming a financing story as well as a chip and model story. Strong demand lowers Microsoft’s borrowing cost and gives it more flexibility to sustain capital expenditure, acquisitions or shareholder returns. The exact allocation of proceeds will determine how much of the money ultimately reaches AI projects.