Fresh off bond sale, Amazon borrows $17.5B from banks as AI spending continues

刚完成债券发行，亚马逊又向银行借款 175 亿美元，AI 支出持续攀升

Companies are burning through exorbitant sums of money to keep pace in the AI arms race. Debt is climbing. Amidst this flurry of activity, Amazon has signed a deal to borrow some $17.5 billion from a number of financial lenders, according to Bloomberg. 为了在人工智能军备竞赛中保持领先，各家公司正在消耗巨额资金，债务水平也随之攀升。据彭博社报道，在这一系列密集动作中，亚马逊已与多家金融贷款机构签署协议，借款约 175 亿美元。

The banks behind the loan reportedly include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and BofA Securities. The deal has been characterized as a delayed draw term loan, meaning Amazon can draw down the funds on its own timeline rather than taking the full sum upfront, giving it flexibility in how and when the money gets deployed. 据报道，参与此次贷款的银行包括花旗集团、摩根大通、富国银行、汇丰银行和美银证券。该交易被定性为“延期提取定期贷款”（delayed draw term loan），这意味着亚马逊可以根据自己的时间表提取资金，而不必一次性全额借入，从而在资金部署的方式和时间上拥有了灵活性。

The loan comes just two days after it was reported that Amazon would also raise $14 billion in a Canadian bond sale, bringing its total new financing to roughly $31.5 billion in the span of roughly 48 hours. It’s not clear exactly how Amazon plans to spend all the new money. Reuters notes that the new loan will be used for “general corporate purposes.” TechCrunch has reached out to Amazon for more information. 就在两天前，有报道称亚马逊将通过加拿大债券发行筹集 140 亿美元。这意味着在短短 48 小时内，亚马逊的新增融资总额已达到约 315 亿美元。目前尚不清楚亚马逊计划如何使用这笔巨额资金。路透社指出，这笔新贷款将用于“一般企业用途”。TechCrunch 已联系亚马逊以获取更多信息。

Amazon is hardly alone. To fund new AI infrastructure like chips and data centers, companies are leveraging historic capex. Increasingly, companies are borrowing money to fund their massive AI buildouts. The question investors and analysts are increasingly asking isn’t whether this spending is necessary — it’s whether the returns will ever justify it. 亚马逊并非个例。为了资助芯片和数据中心等新型人工智能基础设施，各公司正在利用史无前例的资本支出。越来越多的公司通过借贷来资助其庞大的人工智能建设。投资者和分析师现在提出的问题不再是这些支出是否有必要，而是这些投入最终能否获得相应的回报。

The scale of the borrowing is striking even by Silicon Valley standards. About a week ago, Google parent company Alphabet said that it planned to raise $80 billion through a stock sale designed to help “fund its investments in a balanced way while retaining a healthy balance sheet.” Meta has also announced plans to raise $30 billion in a bond sale — its largest ever. 即便以硅谷的标准来看，这种借贷规模也令人震惊。大约一周前，谷歌母公司 Alphabet 表示计划通过股票发行筹集 800 亿美元，旨在帮助其“在保持稳健资产负债表的同时，以平衡的方式为其投资提供资金”。Meta 也宣布计划通过债券发行筹集 300 亿美元，这将是该公司有史以来规模最大的一次融资。