Oracle Market Value Up By $200bn On AI Cloud Boom

Oracle’s shares jumped by nearly 40 per cent on Wednesday after the company unveiled a sharp rise in bookings tied to artificial intelligence, lifting its market value by more than $200bn in a single session and pushing co-founder Larry Ellison’s wealth closer to Elon Musk’s.

The US software group said late Tuesday that it had signed four multibillion-dollar contracts in the three months to August, describing the period as an “astonishing quarter”. The deals, struck with three separate customers, pushed total bookings to $455bn, up from $138bn in the prior quarter and far ahead of Wall Street expectations.

Chief executive Safra Catz told investors Oracle was now partnering with “a who’s who of AI, including OpenAI, xAI, Meta, Nvidia, AMD and many others”, underscoring its transformation from a late entrant in cloud computing to a central player in the global AI race.

Ellison’s Wealth Surge

Shares rose 39 per cent to $334.83, taking Oracle’s market value from $678bn to $943bn in early trading. Ellison, who owns 41 per cent of the stock, saw his net worth approach that of Tesla chief Musk, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. The scale of the increase was among the largest one-day jumps in market capitalisation for a technology company.

Ellison said the contracts reflected not just demand for training large AI models but also the shortage of computing power required for running them at scale, a process known as inferencing. “People are running out of inferencing capacity,” he told analysts. “The inferencing market is much larger than the training market.”

Cloud Pivot Delivers

Oracle was late to pivot its core business towards cloud infrastructure and had long trailed Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. But demand for high-performance computing has surged as AI start-ups and large tech groups race to train ever-larger models, creating opportunities for alternative providers.

Earlier this year Oracle signed a $30bn-a-year contract with OpenAI and SoftBank to support the $500bn Stargate project, cementing its status as a partner in one of the biggest infrastructure initiatives in technology. In July, it emerged OpenAI had agreed to lease 4.5 gigawatts of computing power from Oracle in a deal that will require multiple new data centres across the US.

Catz predicted that Oracle’s infrastructure revenue would rise from $18bn this year to $144bn within five years, almost 60 per cent higher than the $91bn analysts had forecast. By comparison, AWS generated $107bn of revenue in its last full year.

Capital Spending Rises

To meet demand, Oracle has lifted its capital spending forecast by $10bn to $35bn for the fiscal year ending next May. While the increase is steep, Catz said Oracle could achieve more with less than its rivals by focusing spending on servers and equipment rather than on buildings. “I don’t want to call it asset-light,” she said, “but it’s asset pretty light.”

Even so, analysts warned that scaling capacity quickly enough would be a challenge. The global cloud sector is facing supply constraints as demand for graphics processing units (GPUs) outpaces chip production. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta are expected to spend more than $350bn this year on data centres and other AI infrastructure, rising above $400bn in 2026.

Revenue and Profit Trends

Oracle reported quarterly revenue of $14.9bn, up 12 per cent but slightly below Wall Street’s $15bn forecast. Adjusted net income rose 8 per cent to $4.3bn, ahead of analyst expectations.

The results highlighted the extent to which future bookings rather than current revenue are driving investor sentiment. Wall Street had expected strong orders following the July contract disclosure, but few predicted the leap in backlog that emerged this week.

Rising Among Rivals

The surge positions Oracle as a credible challenger in cloud services, particularly in AI infrastructure where new models require vast, specialised computing. While AWS and Azure remain dominant, Oracle’s growth trajectory has exceeded expectations and could alter competitive dynamics if it sustains momentum.

Analysts noted that Oracle’s heavy reliance on a handful of AI customers carries risk, leaving it exposed if demand patterns shift. But supporters argue that its deep integration with companies such as OpenAI and Nvidia provides an entrenched position in one of the fastest-growing segments of technology.

Ellison’s Strategic Bet

For Ellison, who co-founded Oracle in 1977, the gains vindicate years of investment in cloud services that many had dismissed as belated and insufficient. The company’s share of the cloud market remains modest compared with its larger rivals, but its ability to capture AI demand has shifted perceptions.

Ellison has been vocal about the strategic importance of AI workloads, claiming Oracle’s infrastructure is more efficient at handling complex training and inferencing tasks. His personal fortune, now rivaling that of Musk, underlines how central the AI boom has become to wealth creation in technology.

Looking Ahead

The company’s outlook is buoyed by long-term contracts, but questions remain over execution. Oracle must build out enough capacity to meet commitments without overextending, while navigating chip shortages and fierce competition.

Investors are also debating whether current valuations reflect sustainable growth or speculative enthusiasm for AI. Revenue forecasts five years out remain uncertain, particularly if economic conditions weaken or customers diversify suppliers.

Still, the scale of Oracle’s booking surge and the breadth of its AI partnerships mark a turning point. From lagging in cloud computing, the company has re-emerged as one of the sector’s most closely watched players.

A Defining Quarter

For Wall Street, Oracle’s “astonishing quarter” is another reminder of how artificial intelligence is reshaping corporate fortunes. The AI wave has lifted valuations across the technology sector, but few companies have delivered such an immediate impact as Oracle.

Whether the momentum endures will depend on its ability to convert record bookings into realised revenue and profit. For now, Ellison and Catz can claim to have put Oracle firmly at the centre of the AI economy — and in doing so, have catapulted its value by more than $200bn in a single day.