Database multinational Oracle intends to invest $70 billion to finance its data centre build out, it said in its fourth quarter earnings call.

The company said capital expenditure is expected to grow 25 per cent from 2026’s $55.7 billion.

The news came as it announced its intention to raise $40 billion in debt and equity over the next 12 months to finance its expansion, double its previously announced figure.

The company added that it expects its revenue to reach $90 billion in the same period, in line with last guidance in March.

Despite a 23 per cent year-on-year net income growth, the company’s shares have fallen by 8.4 per cent in pre-market trading at time of writing.

The need for increased financing comes largely from growth in compute demand, which is set to generate huge revenues but requires Oracle to finance the upfront cost of building data centres to provide it.

The largest of these is its $300 billion deal with OpenAI, which will require around 4.5 gigawatts of power capacity for new data centres, enough to power around 4 million homes.

Clay Magouyrk, Oracle’s co-chief executive, said: “AI infrastructure makes [the] existing cloud infrastructure market look insignificant by comparison. Everything we see indicates that this market will reach several trillion dollars annually.”

The Financial Times has reported that investors have questioned whether Oracle will be able to guarantee repayment of its debts given its heavy reliance on a few companies, and are therefore demanding higher premiums on these projects.

The company has also laid off between more than 30,000 staff in order to fund its investments in what was described in April as “part of a broader organisational change”.

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