Markets

Oracle spikes 43% as blockbuster forecast cements it as a major player in the AI race

An exterior view of the Oracle Field Office at Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., October 18, 2019. Earlier in the day, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd passed away at the age of 62.
REUTERS/Tom Brenner
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Oracle's stock is in uncharted territory.

Shares of the software giant stock surged as much as 43% on Wednesday after the company issued a blockbuster outlook for its AI-driven cloud-computing business. It marked the company's biggest single-day percentage gain since 1992.

Oracle CEO Safra Catz said during an analyst call on Tuesday that the company signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers during the fiscal first quarter. That brought a measure of bookings to $455 billion, quadruple where it was a year before.

Catz added that the company expects Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to see revenue increase 77% to $18 billion from the previous year, and issued an aggressive forecast for the figure to hit $144 billion by 2030.

The bullish outlook has thrust Oracle firmly into the elite group of cloud-computing titans battling it out in the race for AI supremacy, a list that also includes Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence pointed out that the company's backlog of $455 billion is roughly four times that of Google, suggesting that Oracle's "cloud-growth rate is poised to surpass" Google's.

Catz said that the company also expects to sign several additional multi-billion-dollar contracts with customers in the next few months, which would push the value of future contracts to over half a trillion dollars. She did not name Oracle's clients, but major contracts that have been made public over the past quarter include one with the Department of Agriculture in April.

Oracle's Cloud revenue is still much smaller compared to that of the largest industry leaders. Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform brought in $75 billion over the past year, while Amazon Web Services generated nearly $112 billion.

"We expect MultiCloud revenue to grow substantially every quarter for several years as we deliver another 37 data centers to our three Hyperscaler partners, for a total of 71," said Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, during the earnings call.

The stock rally is one of Oracle's largest since its founding in 1977. The company's upswing comes as it continues its bet on cloud infrastructure and its access to Nvidia GPUs, which gives it strong processing power. At the open, Oracle shares will be up more than 90% this year.

In July, Oracle signed a deal with OpenAI to develop 4.5 gigawatts of US data center capacity, as part of the Project Stargate supported by the Trump administration. Oracle also brought OpenAI's GPT-5 model into its applications in August and plans to launch an Oracle AI Database service by October, which will let clients run AI models directly on their own data.

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Katherine Li, West Coast breaking news reporter at the Business Insider.
Katherine Li
Katherine Li is a reporter on Business Insider's West Coast business news team. She covers career,  the AI startup culture, and how AI is affecting economic sentiments.Previously, she was a newsroom fellow who wrote international breaking news and produced newsletters for Semafor. Before that, she wrote about climate policies for The Lever, covered the AAPI community for the SF Chronicle as a freelancer, and wrote about the 2019 Hong Kong protests as an intern for The New York Times.She is an alumna of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and a graduate of the international journalism program at Hong Kong Baptist University with minors in French and English literature.  Email Katherine at katherineli@insider.com and follow her on Bluesky @katherineli.bsky.socialExpertise
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Some of her best works include:I'm an early participant in a UBI program that helps workers displaced by AI, and the support is life-changingAI startups are shifting the economic center of gravity of San FranciscoCompanies are struggling to fill manufacturing positions, let alone plan for what Trump's administration has in mindNightmare on Main Street: Trump's trade war is hurting American small businesses
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Samuel O'Brient
Samuel O'Brient is an experienced financial markets and business journalist who has written extensively on a wide range of topics involving economics, technology and public policy. At Business Insider, he covers important macro and micro economic stories, including takes from leading economists and hedge fund managers, breaking IPOscorporate bankruptcies, meme stocks and short-selling. He also writes on other markets such as crypto, oil and real estate.He has interviewed many of the market’s most influential voices, ranging from top economists such as Mark Zandi and Richard Thaler to prominent investors including Danny Moses, Andrew Left, Anthony Scaramucci, Louis Navellier and Grant Cardone.Programs such as LiveNOW from Fox , Taking Stock and Ticker News have had Samuel on to discuss stock market and economic developments. His reporting has been cited by The New York Times DealBook, Bloomberg Radio, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Gizmodo and TheFutureParty.Samuel began at InvestorPlace, covering investing, retail trading and macro economic trends. Prior to joining Business Insider,  he served as a technology markets reporter at TheStreet. He is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Trinity College Dublin.Samuel's work has appeared in publications such as TipRanks, EV and Observer. When he isn't chasing down stories, he can often be found browsing book and record shops. To reach Samuel, email him at sobrient@insider.com or connect with him on LinkedIn. He is also on Signal as Samuel Clemens.