Oracle CEO Safra Catz gave a strong growth outlook for its fiscal 2026 and 2027, indicating that the skyrocketing demand for advanced artificial intelligence computing shows no signs of slowing down.
The company expects fiscal 2026 revenue to grow 15 percent while fiscal 2027 revenue is forecast to grow 20 percent, both surpassing analysts’ estimates, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Oracle, which is a latecomer to a cloud market dominated by Microsoft and Amazon, has been working to boost the appeal of its cloud services by incorporating AI to process large amounts of information.
To support these data-intensive AI services, the company has been strategically expanding its infrastructure with investments in both data centres and semiconductor technology.
“We are on schedule to double our data center capacity this calendar year,” Oracle chairman Larry Ellison said. “Customer demand is at record levels.”
Oracle is part of an AI joint venture called Stargate, along with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Softbank, where they have committed up to US$500 billion ($793 billion) towards developing AI capabilities in the United States.
“Guidance for next fiscal year is impressive and reflects Oracle’s ability to grow its Oracle Cloud business,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.
Catz also said on the post-earnings conference call that the company’s capital expenditure for this fiscal year will more than double to US$16 billion and added that demand is “dramatically” outstripping supply.
“There’s still a big question out there, which is whether cloud infrastructure providers are overspending and overbuilding to support AI workloads that either won’t materialise or won’t be cost effective without changes in the underlying AI and models they run,” said Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of industry analyst firm Valoir.
Cloud revenue in the third quarter rose 23 percent to US$6.2 billion.
The company reported revenue of US$14.13 billion, missing the analysts’ average estimate of US$14.39 billion.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned US$1.47 per share, compared with estimates of US$1.49 per share.
