Oracle and the AI boom’s hidden debt bomb

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 bet, we’re told, lies not in the models themselves but in AI’s physical infrastructure: data centers, chips, and electricity. “The Real AI Talent War Is for Plumbers and Electricians,” declared a January headline in Wired.