Oracle announced plans to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion in 2026 through a mix of equity and debt to finance a major expansion of its cloud infrastructure. The company said the funding will underpin additional capacity required by large AI and cloud customers, naming AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok and xAI among those with contractual needs that Oracle aims to serve.
The financing package is structured to include roughly half equity-linked securities — including mandatory convertible preferred instruments — and common stock, alongside an at-the-market (ATM) program that could sell up to $20 billion of shares. Oracle also plans a senior unsecured bond offering in early 2026 to raise the balance of the target; Goldman Sachs is set to lead the debt issuance while Citi will lead the equity and convertible-preferred transactions. The company says the board has approved the plan; it previously borrowed about $18 billion in 2025 in one of that year’s largest corporate debt deals.
The capital call underlines how capital-intensive the current phase of AI deployment has become. Oracle’s cloud push is closely tied to a high-profile contract with OpenAI that, by Oracle’s account, could see OpenAI rent as much as $300 billion of server capacity from the company. Market sceptics point out that OpenAI has yet to report sustained profitability, leaving questions about the timing and certainty of the revenue stream that is supposed to justify Oracle’s outlays.
Investors have already signalled unease. Oracle shares have fallen more than 50% from a September peak, erasing roughly $460 billion of market value, while credit-market indicators such as CDS spreads have widened. Analysts at TD Cowen have warned that changing market sentiment could force Oracle into cost-cutting measures including potential layoffs of up to 30,000 staff and the divestiture of its Cerner healthcare unit to ease the financing burden. TD Cowen also estimates Oracle could face roughly $156 billion of capex related to the OpenAI deal and has raised its 2026 capex estimate by $15 billion to about $50 billion.
Beyond Oracle, the announcement is a reminder that the AI era is reshaping the economics of cloud computing. Building, powering and cooling AI-scale data centres requires vast up-front investment and long lead times; customers and cloud providers alike are wrestling with how to convert that investment into reliable, predictable returns. The situation is testing banks and capital markets: several U.S. lenders have reportedly paused financing for Oracle-related data-centre projects, a sign that private financing channels may be tightening for very large AI infrastructure builds.
What happens next will hinge on execution and market reception. If Oracle can place its equity-linked instruments and bonds on acceptable terms and if its customers — most importantly OpenAI — convert commitments into steady cash flows, the company could emerge as a stronger player in an AI-dominated cloud market. If not, Oracle will face intense pressure to pare costs, sell assets or dilute shareholders further, while the broader industry will watch closely for contagion to lending and valuations across cloud providers and enterprise software vendors.