US life insurers’ investment exposure to the artificial intelligence sector spiked in the first half of the year and is expected to keep growing, according to a report by Moody’s Corp.

US life insurers held about $85.2 billion in investments related to AI at the end of June, up 24% from the end of 2025, according to the report. These holdings include hyperscalers, data centers and chip manufacturers.

Moody’s analysts define hyperscalers as the five US companies leading the AI buildout: Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. Life insurers held roughly $32.2 billion of their debt at the end of June, an increase of 21% from year-end. That represents about 6.6% of the hyperscalers’ outstanding debt.

While the insurance sector’s total exposure to AI investments remains low, at 1.4% of its cash and invested assets, the figure may understate its total indirect exposure, according to the report. Investments backed by hyperscalers through guarantees and leases add exposure that isn’t reflected in direct holdings, for example.

The analysis also didn’t include investments in some companies whose performance is “highly correlated to the AI ecosystem” and whose credit quality could weaken if spending on AI slows down.

Insurers’ exposure to debt backing the digital infrastructure that supports AI jumped 34%, reaching $39.5 billion at the end of June. These include project financing deals for data centers, graphics processing units and tensor processing unit equipment.

While most of those holdings are investment grade, Moody’s analysts note that the share of bonds falling into the junk category ticked up from 4.7% to 6.1%.