Oracle and the AI boom’s hidden debt bomb (opens in new tab)

Oracle’s debt-heavy AI expansion shows how private credit has become both the fuel for the AI boom and one of its biggest hidden risks. The old adage goes that during a boom, the companies that profit most are the ones selling the picks and shovels. This January, even as consensus had largely settled around the idea that an AI bubble exists, something even Sam Altman acknowledged last August, Blackstone called investing in the “picks and shovels” of AI a “generational” opportunity. The safer ...