Google's parent company issues century bonds, receiving nearly 10 times the subscription orders

Google’s parent company Alphabet recently issued a rare 100-year bond with a scale of 1 billion pounds (approximately $1.4 billion). According to Bloomberg, the bond received nearly ten times the subscription orders, marking a milestone transaction in the debt-driven race among AI giants.

Reports indicate that, according to insiders, this century bond attracted bids totaling up to 9.5 billion pounds. They added that among the five tranches of pound-denominated bonds planned for release by Alphabet on Tuesday, the 1 billion pound 100-year bond received the strongest order volume. The pricing of this tranche is expected to yield about 120 basis points above UK government bonds, while the currently priced 750 million pound shortest-term tranche is set at 45 basis points above the government benchmark.

The issuance of this century-long bond is part of Alphabet’s large-scale financing boom. Earlier, the company completed seven tranches of dollar bonds totaling $20 billion on Monday. In the European market, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is also issuing over $11 billion in bonds denominated in pounds and Swiss francs, including this extremely rare 100-year bond.

Bloomberg commented that this 100-year bond will be the first time since the dot-com bubble era that a tech company has issued such ultra-long-term bonds. For an issuing company, this is a rare feat, as 100 years is a long survival test for any business model, balance sheet, or corporate structure.

“It’s hard to predict what the AI ecosystem will look like in five years, let alone a hundred,” Bloomberg quoted HSBC’s European and US credit strategist Song Jinli, saying, “The entire industry will still exist, but its relative competitive landscape inside will be extremely difficult to forecast.” He acknowledged that some investors with long-term liabilities do need such bonds for maturity matching.

This large-scale debt issuance wave comes after Alphabet announced that its capital expenditure in 2026 will reach up to $185 billion (double last year’s amount) to fund its AI ambitions. Other tech companies have also announced massive spending plans for 2026, and Morgan Stanley estimates that the borrowing amount for large cloud computing companies, dubbed “super-scale enterprises,” will reach $400 billion in 2026, up from $165 billion in 2025.

These enormous borrowing demands have begun to raise concerns about potential pressure on bond valuations.