Barclays exec says top five tech firms could need $100 billion in funding next year

NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) – The funding needs of the top five U.S. technology firms could reach almost $100 billion in 2026, Meghan Graper, global head of debt capital markets at Barclays, said on Wednesday at a Reuters NEXT panel.

Big tech firms are turning aggressively to the debt markets in their race to build AI-ready data centers, a shift for Silicon Valley firms that typically relied on cash to fund their investments.

Since September, public bond issuance by four of the major cloud computing and AI platform companies known as “hyperscalers” has hit nearly $90 billion.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Tatiana Bautzer)