Technology Insights: Software Leads Broad Tech Rally While AI Trade Continues Rebound; CoreWeave, Nebius Surge on Earnings; Intel Upsizes Stock Sale to $20B, Vantage Weighs $100B IPO 

Tech rallied broadly this week, with software leading gains as WCLD and IGV climbed roughly 9% and 6%, respectively, following a strong earnings period, while AI infrastructure and semiconductor names continued to claw back their late-July losses. Earnings drove most of the week’s single name credit moves, with CoreWeave and Nebius shares surging after topping expectations and Claritev’s capital structure rallying on an earnings beat and raised guidance. Capital markets activity remained heavy across the AI infrastructure complex, headlined by Nvidia’s new financing partnerships to mobilize more than $500 billion for AI buildouts alongside fresh data center debt issuance from Zenith Arc, Lambda Labs and CoreWeave. Elsewhere, Intel upsized its common stock offering to $20 billion to fund its foundry expansion, Vantage Data Centers began exploring a potential $100 billion IPO and Anthropic emerged in talks to acquire Decart AI for roughly $6 billion.
 

Aggregated Pricing Data

Weighted-average yield and weighted-average price moves as of the morning of Aug. 13 across select sub-investment-grade dollar-denominated bonds and loans for the tech sector are shown below:
 

Note: Octus has disaggregated the “Tech Hardware and AI Infrastructure HY index” displayed in prior iterations of this report into separate indexes for high-yield AI infrastructure comprising neoclouds and data center SPV credits and broader high-yield tech hardware credits to better illustrate pricing divergences across the broader sector.

The chart below tracks equity performance across broader tech, as measured by the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) and iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) for broader software. More specialized exchange-traded funds are included to track semiconductor performance through the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), cybersecurity performance through the First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR), AI infrastructure performance through the Defiance AI & Power Infrastructure ETF (AIPO) and cloud software performance via the WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund (WCLD).
 

Tech benefited from a continued broad-based rally this week as all of the ETFs discussed above finished up materially. Software led the broad-based tech surge, with WCLD and IGV up about 9% and 6%, respectively, over the past week and now up 16% and 12%, respectively, over the past month following what was a relatively strong earnings period for software companies. Cybersecurity companies followed closely behind with CIBR up over 5% over the past week and about 10% over the past month.

AI infrastructure and semiconductor performance has rebounded strongly over the past few weeks after concerns on AI spending outstripping demand caused a late July selloff. AIPO and SMH were up 3% and 4%, respectively, over the past week and have now completely erased late-July declines, now up modestly over the past month.

Largest Weekly Price Movers

Software
 

Headlining the largest software credit moves on the week was Veracode’s term loan due 2029, which fell 6.5 points on the week to about 24, continuing the downturn that commenced at the end of 2025 following weak financial performance and subsequent ratings downgrades. Octus published an analysis in March, discussing the company’s competitive share loss despite structural AI-driven demand in the category.

Other downward moves were more modest, though KnowBe4’s term loan due 2032 notably declined 3.5 points to 71 after its recent outlook revision to stable from positive by S&P Global Ratings on weaker-than-expected performance headlined by slower-than-anticipated top-line growth and elevated leverage.

Upward moves were headlined by several tranches across Claritev’s capital structure, though its 5.75% secured notes due 2030 saw the most significant movement, increasing 6 points over the past week to 83 following the company’s strong earnings last week. The company exceeded consensus estimates and raised full-year guidance.

Tech Hardware and Data Centers & AI Infrastructure
 

Sentiments continued to recover within this space this week, led by SE Cosmos. Credit decliners were not material, led by Cipher Compute, which declined by less than a half-point. That said, shares of Nebius and CoreWeave rallied 34% and 19%, respectively, on Aug. 12, after the two neoclouds reported results surpassing market expectations, reinforcing the strong demand for AI cloud infrastructure.
 

Credit volatility across semiconductor, component and other hardware space appeared minimal this week, though a handful of Xerox bonds experienced continued capital structure volatility. Amkor led the risers, likely following a Bloomberg reporting that Amkor is exploring a partial sale of its China business, estimated to be worth $1 billion to $1.5 billion, with Asian investment firms and industry players viewed as the most probable bidders.

Separately, the strong earnings reports from Super Micro Computer and Lumentum Holdings lifted their share prices by 31% and 9%, respectively, over five days, as of Aug. 13. However, Coherent Corp. gave up its earlier gains on the Lumentum read-through, declining 7% on Aug. 13, despite posting results that surpassed analysts’ expectations.
 

Americas

Octus published earnings analyses on several high-yield credits over the past week including Twilio, CoreWeave and Super Micro Computer.

We specifically highlight CoreWeave’s highly topical results, which were headlined by margins inflecting well ahead of schedule and backlog growing to over $104 billion. Management raised full-year revenue, adjusted operating income and capex guidance on accelerating customer deliveries.

Covenant Analysis

Octus’ Covenants team published its High Yield Half-Year Wrap this week, diving into how the high-yield debt market has heavily funded the “AI buildout.”

Private Company Analysis

Private Company Analysis has published earnings for Internet Brands that is available for the lenders of the company. All information used is public-side.

Ratings Actions
 

• Fitch Ratings assigned a first-time long-term issuer default rating of CCC+ to SonicWall (Cayman) Ltd., SonicWall US Holdings Inc. and SonicWall International LLC with a stable outlook. The ratings reflect SonicWall’s constrained financial flexibility and elevated leverage profile, with total debt standing at $975 million.
   
• Robertshaw Parent LLC amended its first lien term loan credit agreement whereby a majority of its lending group permitted PIK interest on the company’s first-out and second-out term loans for the August and November 2026 quarters. S&P views this amendment as akin to a default on its term loans because lenders receive less than originally promised. S&P lowered its issue-level ratings on the company’s first-out and second-out term loan to D from CCC and CC.
   
• Moody’s Ratings assigned a Ba2 corporate family rating to Zenith Arc LLC and a Ba2 rating to its proposed $2.25 billion senior secured notes due 2031 with a stable outlook. The proceeds from the notes will be used to fund the construction of a data center and substation in Central Oklahoma, leased to JS Data Center LLC, a subsidiary of Jane Street Group LLC, under a long-term lease. The ratings reflect expectations of stable cash flow because of the lease’s structure and Jane Street’s guarantee, despite construction risks and a high loan-to-cost ratio.

Capital Markets Activity
 

• Nvidia announced strategic partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to establish independent compute financing platforms and mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure buildouts. The partnerships, structured as memorandums of understanding, aim to create “dedicated pools of capital at significant scale at attractive rates for Nvidia customers.” The funds will enable AI infrastructure expansion across Nvidia’s ecosystem, including frontier AI labs, enterprises and AI cloud providers, although the partnerships remain subject to execution of final agreements.
   
• Lambda Labs, an AI-native platform designed to serve the full spectrum of AI customers, raised $926 million of term loan B maturing in December 2030 at S+300 bps and 99.5 OID. The proceeds will be used to support the acquisition and installation of GPUs and ancillary networking infrastructure to be deployed pursuant to a take-or-pay style contract with Nvidia.
   
• Zenith Arc LLC, a subsidiary of Prairieland Rivers LLC, is developing a data center in Oklahoma with a 149 megawatt critical IT load capacity, fully leased to a global trading and financial services firm for 15 years. The company is issuing $2.25 billion in senior secured green notes with a five-year tenor, having initial price talks in high-8% area.
   
• CoreWeave on Aug. 10 announced the closing of its $2.6 billion delayed-draw term loan facility, pricing at SOFR+5.5%. According to the company, the offering was meaningfully oversubscribed.
   

AI Data Center Giant Vantage Weighs $100B IPO as Compute Boom Reshapes Infrastructure

Vantage Data Centers is exploring an IPO as soon as next year with a valuation of approximately $100 billion, which would make it the largest data center IPO to date, potentially raising around $10 billion. The company has raised roughly $11 billion since late 2023 as AI-driven demand lifts data center valuations, reflecting how dramatically AI has changed the economics of physical computing infrastructure. The company is also involved in a Wisconsin data center campus connected to the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate buildout.

Anthropic in Talks to Acquire Decart AI for About $6B

Anthropic is in talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart AI for about $6 billion, which would be the Claude maker’s largest known acquisition, as Decart makes software that can reduce the cost of training and operating AI by helping chips work more efficiently. The deal would allow Anthropic to get more out of its current infrastructure as demand grows. The agreement, however, has not been finalized.

Intel Expands AI-Fueled Stock Offering to $20B From $15B

Intel upsized its stock offering from $15 billion to $20 billion on Aug. 11, pricing 210.5 million shares at $95 each and generating approximately $19.7 billion in net proceeds designated for foundry expansion and AI chip manufacturing, marking the company’s first public share sale since its 1971 IPO. Intel raised its 2026 capital expenditures guidance to over $20 billion with CFO David Zinsner signaling a “meaningful increase” in 2027, as the company races to close the foundry market-share gap with TSMC amid surging AI computing demand.