Oracle is holding the line on its data center spending forecast.
On Thursday, Oracle reported $28.5 billion in first-quarter capital expenditures, up from $8.5 billion a year earlier. It kept its fiscal 2027 capital expenditure forecast at $90 billion to $95 billion, including data center spending. Its capex forecast has not changed from the guidance it first issued in June.
Many major cloud companies have continued to raise their AI spending forecasts as they race to build more data centers and expand AI capacity — except Microsoft, which kept its capex forecast unchanged in July and also saw its stock soar after reporting earnings.
Asked on the earnings call how long Oracle will continue its heavy AI infrastructure spending, co-CEO Clay Magouyrk instead focused on how the company finances those projects.
“We have to separate out in our minds what Oracle spends as capex directly, uncouple that directly from how we think about how the business can grow,” he said.
Oracle shares were up 7% after the company reported 121% growth in cloud infrastructure revenue in its first-quarter earnings release, apparently easing Wall Street fears about whether data center spending would translate to sales.
Oracle has borrowed tens of billions of dollars to build data centers and buy chips, and it has been under massive pressure to balance that spending with Wall Street’s profitability expectations.
Oracle reported $55.7 billion in capex, including new data centers, in its 2026 fiscal year.
Oracle has developed several financing models, including supplier financing arrangements, customer prepayments, and “bring your own hardware” deals in which customers purchase hardware while Oracle provides the cloud infrastructure and operations.
Business Insider reported last month that Oracle had drawn up plans for a new round of job cuts to reduce payroll as it racks up billions in debt to fund AI infrastructure.
Alphabet and Tesla recently increased their capex projections, sending their stocks tumbling in July. Meta narrowed its own capex forecast range.
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