Foreign money and circular deals are fueling the AI boom, and the 2008 comparisons are back

The AI boom has a funding story, and it is starting to sound familiar. Bloomberg reporting from October 12-13, 2026 describes a circular global financing loop now powering the construction of data centers and chip plants.

Money is flowing in from surplus nations such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It is also cycling between major tech firms themselves.

Follow the money, then follow it again

Bloomberg’s coverage points to two engines behind the current surge. The first is foreign capital from countries running trade surpluses. The second is investment among the big tech companies, which together speed up the buildout of AI infrastructure.

The scale is enormous. The world’s five largest tech companies are projected to invest over $1 trillion in AI-related projects by 2025-2026.

Four of the hyperscalers alone, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta, are aiming for between $720-$745 billion in combined capital expenditure in 2026. Hyperscalers are the cloud giants that rent out massive computing capacity. Capex is the money they spend on physical assets like servers, buildings, and chips.

The International Monetary Fund has tried to put a number on how tangled things have become. In deals it reviewed since 2023, the IMF calculated approximately $1.4 trillion in future revenue commitments. Those commitments are linked to $300 billion in equity and $650 billion in debt.

Why 2008 keeps coming up

The Bloomberg reporting flags imbalances that resemble the period before the financial crisis. These include trade surpluses abroad, US deficits at home, and concentrated financial bets.

Global trade imbalances are returning to levels near their 2007-08 peak. This time, the surplus capital is focused on US AI equities and corporate bonds.

The reporting also highlights heavy reliance on debt financing and opaque deal structures.

AI investment has helped drive thematic ETF inflows to around $56 billion year-to-date in 2026. Debt issuance tied to the theme reached hundreds of billions before slowing in September.

How we got here

The current cycle traces back to the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022. Since then, the investment story has shifted from software innovation to physical infrastructure. Spending now runs to hundreds of billions annually.

The capital has concentrated among a limited number of US tech giants and semiconductor manufacturers in Asia. In the process, foreign savings have been pulled into riskier financial vehicles.

Both the Bank for International Settlements and the IMF have warned about the potential for a prolonged investment slump. They have also called for greater transparency in how these deals are financed.

What this means for investors and the broader market

Bloomberg’s reporting raises the prospect of market corrections and investment busts if anticipated returns fail to materialize.

The $650 billion in debt the IMF tied to reviewed deals sits alongside $1.4 trillion in future revenue commitments. If revenue falls short, lenders, not just shareholders, absorb the pain.

Surplus nations recycling savings into US AI equities and corporate bonds have helped fund the boom. Any shift in that flow could tighten financing conditions quickly.

The BIS and IMF calls for transparency point to a market where deal structures are hard to read from the outside.