Amazon Raises £4.25 Billion in First Sterling Bond Sale to Fund AI Buildout

Amazon.com raised £4.25 billion, or about $5.76 billion, in its first-ever sterling bond sale on September 9, 2026, slightly more than initially expected, as part of a four-tranche deal spanning 3 to 19 years. Final investor demand came in at more than £10.65 billion, roughly 2.5 times the amount raised, but that was notably lower than the demand Alphabet saw for its own sterling debut in February, a sign analysts said shows hyperscaler borrowing may be starting to test the limits of investor appetite. The offering diversifies Amazon's funding base alongside its existing dollar, euro, Swiss franc and yen debt, and gives it another channel to finance AI and cloud infrastructure, including AWS, whose revenue rose 36.7% year over year in the second quarter, its fastest growth in 18 quarters. The weaker reception comes as Amazon reported a $7.6 billion trailing free-cash-flow outflow and expects capital expenditures of roughly $220 billion in 2026, while the European Central Bank has warned that hyperscaler borrowing could crowd out other companies and push up funding costs. Amazon remains Insider Monkey's most widely held stock, with 369 hedge funds holding a stake in the second quarter, up from 353 in the first, and position value rising to $97.10 billion from $77.61 billion.

Elon Musk said in a September 13 post on X that he is highly confident Space Exploration Technologies Corp. will transport NVIDIA Corporation Vera Rubin NVL72 AI computers into orbit next year, reinforcing SpaceX's Starmind plan to build AI data centers in space. The first satellite, Starmind AI1, will carry a space-optimized version of NVIDIA's Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system, with SpaceX targeting a fourth-quarter 2027 launch and substantial scale by 2028. Musk has argued that orbital solar power could make space the lowest-cost location for AI computing within two to three years, though Microsoft President Brad Smith has publicly questioned whether computation will actually move from the ground to low-Earth orbit. The plan depends on SpaceX's Starship rocket proving its launch frequency and reliability, and when Musk said in SpaceX's August earnings call that the company would build its future AI infrastructure exclusively on NVIDIA, NVDA shares rose more than 4% while SpaceX shares fell more than 10% before paring losses. According to some analyst models, SpaceX accounts for approximately 5% of NVIDIA's revenue, and hedge fund holdings in NVIDIA rose from 275 in the first quarter to 285 in the second, while 119 funds held stakes in SpaceX as of the second quarter.