Google, Meta and the AI ‘hyperscalers’ are on a $1 trillion borrowing binge after years of printing cash. Here’s why Big Tech’s pivot to debt matters

Almost every major capital spending boom during the past 200 years has ended in bankruptcies, consolidations, and tears—but also wins for the victors.

The late 1990s buildout of fiber-optic networks, in which companies spent billions to pull dark fiber across continents and under oceans, saw borrowers like WorldCom, Global Crossing, and others go under. The shale revolution that prompted U.S. oil and gas companies to issue $350 billion in debt to fund drilling led to hundreds of bankruptcies...