BlockBeats News, June 7th. DoubleLine Capital and Oaktree Capital are positioning themselves ahead of a potential AI bubble burst, with a strategy to selectively choose bonds that can survive in a deep credit cycle. DoubleLine Capital fund manager Robert Cohen stated at the Bloomberg Global Credit Forum that the probability of an AI bubble bursting is around 100%. He believes that with tech companies continuing to pour massive amounts of funds, the market will undoubtedly reach bubble levels in the coming months or years. Cohen defines a credit bubble as investors providing financing to companies that require actual growth to service their debt, a path that has historically led to the demise of technological booms. Therefore, he advocates for finding targets that can survive through structural arrangements or a strong balance sheet, rather than relying on future growth expectations.

The leveraged scale of the AI industry has seen an unprecedented expansion. According to Barclays, the issuance of unsecured bonds globally by U.S. mega-cap tech companies has exceeded $155 billion year-to-date, up over 45% from the previous year. Bloomberg Intelligence predicts that in the next five years, corporate AI capital expenditure will reach around $50 trillion, with a significant portion relying on debt financing. Just this week, Hut 8 issued approximately $4 billion in investment-grade bonds to finance an NVIDIA-related data center project with four times oversubscription, and Anthropic's $36 billion chip procurement bond issuance is also nearing completion.

Christina Lee, Co-Head of Private Credit at Oaktree Capital, stated that there are vast opportunities for data center financing but careful selection is necessary because "it is indeed unclear who will come out on top and who will exit." Dan Ivascyn, Group Chief Investment Officer at PIMCO, is even more cautious, believing that overallocating to AI is not suitable. However, due to the significant financing needs, value can be unlocked while maintaining a defensive posture. He warned that once defaults occur, the loss magnitude may exceed historical experience. Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates reminded that large-scale technological revolutions always come with excessive speculation, putting companies in a dilemma of either investing heavily to capture the market or not spending enough to yield to others.