Amazon to raise $15 billion from US bond sale, Bloomberg News reports

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(Reuters) -Amazon is set to raise $15 billion from its first U.S. dollar bond offering in three years, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, as big tech firms increase investments to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

The proceeds topped initial estimates of $12 billion, the report said.

As artificial intelligence workloads grow, big technology firms are turning to large-scale debt sales to fund infrastructure expansions that cost tens of billions of dollars.

The e-commerce giant said in a regulatory filing it has filed for a six-part bond sale on Monday, but did not disclose more details. The company declined to comment on the details provided in the Bloomberg report.

At the peak, the bond attracted about $80 billion of demand, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Proceeds may be used for everything, from acquisitions and capital expenditures to share buybacks.

Pricing discussions for the longest portion of the deal, a 40-year bond, tightened to 0.85 percentage point above Treasuries, from 1.15 percentage point initially, the report said.

Last month, Meta Platforms announced its biggest bond sale of up to $30 billion, while cloud infrastructure and software maker Oracle is also reportedly looking to raise $15 billion in bond sales.

Major tech firms including Meta, Amazon and Alphabet are expected to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. 

Amazon has been spending more on AI with its capital expenditure expected to total around $125 billion this year and more the year after. It recently announced a $38 billion deal with OpenAI, giving a major lift to its cloud unit after losing ground to Microsoft and Google.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Maju Samuel and Leroy Leo)