Allspring files to add an AI infrastructure bond ETF

Fund issuers are lining up to package the debt that is financing the AI buildout. Reuters reported Tuesday that Goldman Sachs has projected a record $420 billion of gross hyperscaler debt issuance in 2027, 60% above its 2026 estimates, and that investment-grade buyers have been asking for extra yield at issue, a new-issue concession, to take that paper. Defiance has had an indexed bond fund in registration since August. Roundhill filed this week for an AI power equity series. The Defiance AI & Power Infrastructure ETF CAIPO, an equity fund already trading the theme, held $935 million as of Wednesday.

Allspring is the latest into that queue, filing from a fixed-income desk whose eight listed ETFs include no single-industry credit portfolio. On Thursday it put a Form 485APOS in front of the SEC to add the Allspring AI Infrastructure Bond ETF as a new series of Allspring Exchange-Traded Funds Trust. The paper is a registration, not a fund you can buy. Post-effective amendment No. 8 asks to add the series and to make other changes the trust calls non-material. The prospectus is marked subject to completion. The ticker line is a bracket. The listing exchange is "[TBD]". The management fee is an unfilled percent. The filer checked the box for effectiveness 75 days after filing under Rule 485(a)(2), the usual clock for adding a series. That is how a Rule 485(a) amendment looks when the product is still being written. Later amendments can fill the blanks, change the strategy, or leave the series unlaunched.

What the 80% test would buy

The fund would seek total return: a high level of current income plus capital appreciation. Under normal circumstances it would invest at least 80% of net assets in direct or indirect holdings of debt issued by companies involved in the buildout or maintenance of AI infrastructure, including through securitized vehicles. It may put up to 30% of total assets in below-investment-grade bonds. The registration sits inside the trust's active-ETF prospectus and does not name an index.

The name says infrastructure. The 80% test is wider. The preliminary prospectus counts a company as qualifying if it is engaged in any of three lines of work: developing AI technologies, models, software, or applications; making or supplying the hardware, semiconductors, equipment, and other technology used to train, deploy, or run AI systems; or owning, operating, financing, or supporting the physical and digital plant those systems need, including data centers, cloud infrastructure, communications networks, fiber, and electric power generation and transmission.

The same prospectus describes the series as non-diversified, meaning it could put more of its assets in fewer issuers than a diversified fund, and says the fund will concentrate in the industries tied to that mandate. Four Allspring Investments portfolio managers are named on the series, including Brian Keller on the global fixed-income team and Mira Park on investment-grade income. What a holder would be buying is a non-diversified fund that will concentrate in those industries, with an eligibility screen that reaches software developers, chip suppliers, and power generators, not just data-center landlords.

Defiance filed first

Allspring is not the first issuer to put a bond version on paper. On August 4, Tidal Trust V filed a post-effective amendment to add the Defiance AI Infrastructure Bond ETF, a proposed series that would seek to track the MarketVector AI Infrastructure Bond Index. That prospectus is also subject to completion, with the ticker and listing exchange left blank. It is a competing registration, not a listed fund. Roundhill puts an AI power ETF in registration as APOW covered the equity side of this lineup earlier this week.

Defiance's competing registration would track an index. Allspring's would not. Both are still paper. The next Allspring amendment has to say what the package will cost and where it will trade, against a 2027 calendar Goldman has already put at record size.