AI boom could create financial-stability risks, BIS chief warns

The Bank for International Settlements warned on Thursday that the scale and concentration of investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure is starting to carry financial-stability implications.

In a quarterly review chapter published in Basel, the BIS said borrowing to fund data centres, power connections and chip supply has grown quickly, is concentrated among a small number of borrowers and lenders, and is increasingly financed through private credit rather than bank balance sheets that supervisors can see clearly.

The comparison the BIS draws

The review does not forecast a crash. It compares the pattern to earlier infrastructure build-outs in which demand assumptions were set years ahead of revenue, and notes that when those assumptions were revised, the losses fell on lenders with limited visibility of one another's exposures.

What supervisors are being asked to do

The BIS calls for better disclosure of private-credit exposures to the sector and for stress testing that assumes a slower-than-expected ramp in AI revenue.

Compiled from the BIS Quarterly Review and accompanying remarks, and from Reuters reporting. Verification cut-off 22:30 BST on 10 September 2026.