Oracle predicts investors poised to pump $50 billion into its cloud this year alone
- Reference: 1770008507
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/02/oracle_cloud_expansion_investment_plan/
- Source link:
Big Red on Sunday issued an [1]announcement that explains it is raising money “to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others.”
The announcement says Oracle “expects” to raise $45 to $50 billion of gross cash proceeds during the 2026 calendar year alone, using “a balanced combination of debt and equity financing.”
[2]
Oracle plans to get its hands on the billions it needs with three tactics.
[3]
[4]
One is issuing bonds, a move Big Red thinks will win it about half the cash it wants. Oracle also says these are the only bonds it will issue in 2026.
The company will also issue mandatory convertible preferred securities that it says will deliver “a modest portion of the overall equity funding.” The rest will come from “a newly authorized at-the-market equity program of up to $20 billion.”
[5]Oracle seeks to build bridges with MySQL developers
[6]Birmingham City Council's Oracle ERP fiasco now £144M and still not working
[7]Oracle silent over user complaints about OCI London 'wobble' last week
[8]Bank of England's Oracle cloud migration bill triples as project grinds on
Some investors [9]weren’t entirely happy last year when Oracle used bonds to raise $18 billion to fund cloud builds, arguing that the debt might create risk.
Big Red’s bulletin twice mentions that it can raise this lot of cash while its stock remains “investment-grade” – an admission that some investors might worry that raising this much cash might be a risky move given the uncertainty surrounding AI. Investors are also likely aware that Oracle’s cloudy competitors – the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon – all win $250 billion-plus of annual revenue, compared to Oracle’s $57 billion, and are spending a lot more than Big Red on datacenter infrastructure.
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Oracle has told markets it has booked $455 billion of cloudy services it is yet to deliver, and is clearly betting that its expanded cloud will generate so much revenue that bondholders will earn a nice return, while shareholders need not fear the issuance of new equity will dilute value … or dilute it more, given that the database giant’s shares peaked at over $328 in September 2025 but last week went from almost $185 to around $164. ®
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[1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oracle-announces-equity-and-debt-financing-plan-for-calendar-year-2026-302675778.html
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYCD0xk8N3exCOs62g_39QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYCD0xk8N3exCOs62g_39QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/30/oracle_mysql/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/birmingham_oracle_latest/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/28/oci_access_complaints/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/bank_of_england_oracle/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/15/oracle_faces_class_action_over/?_gl=1*151gnwo*_ga*MTI0MjE1MDMxNS4xNzE5OTg5NTg5*_ga_JXW44Y23NM*czE3NzAwMDYxNzgkbzE4MTgkZzEkdDE3NzAwMDc0MjgkajMwJGwwJGgw
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aYCD0xk8N3exCOs62g_39QAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Beware the licensee terms
Agree.
On the other hand, these days even simple 7B chat bots make you aware that using Oracle software means navigating a legal minefield and tell you to be very cautious and to make sure you follow every single limitation and every small detail in Oracle's byzantine licensing terms.
So, if that really is their overall plan, Oracle AI is probably toast.
Meh...
...Oracle has yet to honor it's obligations to the license agreement of Open Solaris. That alone would barely cost them a thing. So why should World+Dog trust them to pay bonds?
Couldn't Larry just sell one of his yachts?
:)
If one thinks about what money selling a luxury yacht would bring in (a few dozen to hundred millions) the enormous volume and risk of those AI investments becomes more clear ...
Timing
Oracle is starting to ramp up cloud infrastructure just as Europe is starting to turn away from American cloud providers. Great timing guys!
Oracle's strategic moves under pressure
Tick, tick, tick ...
A huge time-bomb is looming on Oracle's horizon, as it goes all-in on a weak AI/cloud poker hand. A 50% drop in its stock price is a clue, people.
I'd rather bet on Google, Microsoft and Anthropic.
Apple has already lost the battle, and Meta just wants to find ways to sell even more ads to clueless people.
Beware the licensee terms
They'll probably have the most intricate and comprehensive suite of ai products, a cornucopia of do all and be all for everybody, priced from a pittance for entry-level to a king's ransom for it all.
Most people will pay for entry-level, never knowing that Oracle delivered everything. They'll naively ask the ai the wrong questions using the wrong phrasing, thus trespassing into advanced product territory, and then licence enforcement will pounce, audit usage, discover the usage that was not paid for, and demand the licensee pay for the top level product for every possible seat to avoid prosecution.
Every possible seat will include all employees, from janitorial to the board and all in between. It will include a seat for every customer of the licensee. And for every visitor. That will be how they make the real money.