Alphabet, Amazon play catch-up as Anthropic, OpenAI contest AI business, spending lead

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are attempting to close the gap in the artificial intelligence market by raising tens of billions from global debt markets. 

Both giants are making their recent pushes up the AI challenger ladder after Anthropic and OpenAI captured early leads in enterprise AI adoption and revenue growth, even though notably, neither company is profitable yet. 

Alphabet and Amazon get in on the big tech spending spree

Alphabet has raised nearly $60 billion in just four months, roughly four times the total debt it accumulated in its first 26 years. The company sold ¥576.5 billion ($3.6 billion) in yen bonds and completed another C$8.5 billion (approximately $6.2 billion) bond sale in Canada

Alphabet has since raised its capital expenditure guidance to as much as $190 billion for 2026, nearly double its 2025 levels.

Similarly, Amazon recently completed a bond sale exceeding $3 billion in the Swiss franc market and launched a $37 billion multi-tranche dollar deal.

Combined, the five largest tech giants are estimated to spend roughly $800 billion on AI infrastructure this year, with that figure potentially exceeding $1.1 trillion in 2027.

However, Jim Fitzpatrick of Allspring Global Investments warned that “all this AI-related debt issuance keeps investors thinking about at what point there will simply be too much paper.”

Nearly 40% of U.S. high-grade corporate bond sales this year have come from tech companies and hyperscale computing infrastructure firms.

OpenAI and Anthropic compete for customers and funds

Over the last few years, OpenAI has been the face of generative AI, but recent data from the May 2026 AI Index from fintech firm Ramp shows that Anthropic now has more verified business customers. 

The data, which tracks spending across 50,000 companies, shows 34.4% of businesses pay for Anthropic’s Claude, compared to 32.3% for ChatGPT.

Cryptopolitan reported that the rapid adoption of Claude has caused Anthropic’s annualized revenue to surge past $30 billion, up from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. The company also reported that over 1,000 businesses now spend more than $1 million annually on its services. The company recently committed $50 billion to expand its computing infrastructure in the United States.

OpenAI argues it has significantly more computing muscle (1.9 gigawatts vs. Anthropic’s 1.4 GW) and plans to invest roughly $600 billion in chips through 2030. However, OpenAI expects to lose $14 billion in 2026 and does not forecast breaking even until 2030, three years after Anthropic’s projected timeline of 2027.

The scale of fundraising and subsequent spending despite unclear break-even timelines reflects the importance of the stakes at play when it comes to AI. Elon Musk and OpenAI are in court as of this report, while the US government has moved to gain a first-mover’s advantage on any AI models that will be released in the future. 

Simply put, AI has gotten to the stage where big tech firms and even governments are jostling to get to the head of the line.