Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is warning that the artificial intelligence boom is adding fresh pressure to an already stretched U.S. debt market. In a recent post on LinkedIn, titled “The Nu
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is warning that the artificial intelligence boom is adding fresh pressure to an already stretched U.S. debt market.
In a recent post on LinkedIn, titled “The Numbers Behind the Bond Bear Market,” the Bridgewater Associates founder projected annual net U.S. debt supply will rise to about $4.4 trillion in 2027, up from about $3.5 trillion in 2025.
“The way I would think about the 2027 challenge is that the supply of debt will likely rise from about $3.5 trillion annual net debt supply in 2025 to about $4.4 trillion in 2027, which is an incremental $0.5 trillion per year, not including debt rollovers,” Dalio mentioned.
The figure covers borrowing across the economy and excludes debt that has to be rolled over.
Dalio said hyper-scalers, the cloud giants building AI data centers, issued about $220 billion in bonds in the first half of 2026. That is more than double the roughly $108 billion they issued in all of 2025.
He said heavier spending funded by more debt and stock sales is shrinking free cash flow, calling it “the classic first stage of a squeeze.”
“This market is now beginning to tighten as investors are beginning to require larger concessions to absorb the supply,” he said.
The International Monetary Fund separately found that hyper-scalers now account for 10% of global investment-grade bond issuance, up from less than 1% in 2024.
Dalio’s concern is that companies and the U.S. Treasury are now competing for the same investors. If buyers demand higher yields, borrowing gets more expensive for everyone.
“The American corporate piece—particularly the AI complex—is becoming very big at the same time as the Treasury piece is already enormous," said Dalio.
His view stands in contrast to Elon Musk, who has argued AI is the only way to fix the US debt.
The debt has since crossed $40 trillion.
Dalio has paired his debt warnings with advice on protection. In an August LinkedIn post, he urged investors to underweight bonds and overweight gold and “a bit of bitcoin,” suggesting 10% to 15% of a portfolio in gold.
He said he expects “non-government-produced monies like gold and bitcoin to do relatively well.” He also warned that a US debt crisis could arrive in about three years, “give or take two.”
“I suggest diversifying well in asset classes and countries that have strong income statements and balance sheets and are not having great internal political and external geopolitical conflicts, underweighting debt assets like bonds, and overweighting gold and a bit of Bitcoin,” he shared in his post.
Still, Dalio remains cautious on Bitcoin. He prefers gold and has raised concerns about Bitcoin’s privacy and possible threats from quantum computing.
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