Oracle is heading into its latest earnings report with investors focused on one central question: can the software giant’s rapidly expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure business grow fast enough to justify the enormous spending required to build it?
The company, led by Larry Ellison, is scheduled to report quarterly results on Thursday in what could be one of the most closely watched earnings releases of the quarter.
The options market is pricing in a move of roughly 11.2% in either direction following the results, an unusually large potential swing for a company of Oracle’s size.
Wall Street expects revenue of about $19.1 billion, up nearly 28% from a year earlier, with earnings of $1.74 a share.
Oracle shares ORCL, however, have struggled.
The stock has fallen nearly 20% since the start of the year and more than 33% over the past 12 months as investors have become increasingly concerned about the debt and cash requirements associated with the company’s AI infrastructure expansion.
Oracle’s AI ambitions come with a hefty bill
The heart of the debate is Oracle’s planned investment in data centers.
The company expects capital expenditure of roughly $95 billion in fiscal 2027, which runs from June 1 through May 31.
Oracle raised about $43 billion through debt financing in fiscal 2026 and expects to raise approximately $40 billion through a combination of debt and equity in fiscal 2027.
That aggressive funding strategy has made Oracle something of an unusual AI infrastructure play.
While demand for cloud computing capacity is growing rapidly, investors are questioning how quickly that demand will translate into revenue and cash flow.
BofA sees attractive risk-reward setup heading into earnings
Bank of America analyst Tal Liani nevertheless sees an attractive risk-reward setup heading into the results.
He maintained a Buy rating and a $240 price target, implying about 51% upside from current levels.
Liani expects Oracle’s infrastructure-as-a-service revenue to grow 25% sequentially and 116% year over year as the company expands its data-center footprint.
Oracle’s infrastructure ramp could accelerate overall revenue growth, while customer prepayments could help alleviate some of the concerns surrounding the company’s financing requirements.
“We favor the risk/reward of Oracle, as we believe Street consensus already captures the challenging balance sheet fundamentals,” Liani wrote on Friday, “yet is not fully incorporating the likelihood of revenue growth acceleration related to reaching DC buildout milestones.”
Morgan Stanley, Bernstein highlight cloud growth
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI, has emerged as the centerpiece of the company’s AI investment story.
Morgan Stanley analyst Sanjit Singh sees a “good setup” heading into earnings and expects cloud revenue growth of 63% from a year earlier.
That would put growth near the upper end of Oracle’s 58% to 65% guidance range for the August quarter.
Singh expects Oracle’s GPU-as-a-service business, which allows customers to rent computing capacity powered by graphics processing units, to be an important contributor.
Recent commentary from CoreWeave and Nebius has also strengthened the case for continued demand.
Both companies have offered upbeat views on pricing for AI infrastructure, suggesting that high demand for computing power could allow Oracle to charge attractive rates as it expands capacity.
Oracle’s most recent fiscal fourth quarter showed just how quickly OCI is growing.
The company reported 93% constant-currency growth in its cloud infrastructure business.
Bernstein analyst Mark Moerdler expects that growth to accelerate during fiscal 2027, with OCI continuing to expand faster than Oracle’s overall revenue.
Piper Sandler sees upside in Oracle’s software ops
Although AI infrastructure dominates the investment narrative, analysts argue that investors should not overlook Oracle’s traditional software operations.
Liani expects cloud software-as-a-service revenue to grow 12.8% in the quarter, compared with 10.3% in the previous quarter.
“While Oracle’s equity narrative is largely centered on the infrastructure business, we believe the company’s traditional software business remains an important component of the investment case,” Liani wrote.
Piper Sandler analyst Billy Fitzsimmons also sees potential upside in Oracle’s software operations.
Bookings for NetSuite, the company’s enterprise resource-planning software, accelerated toward the end of the fourth quarter, while Cerner, Oracle’s electronic health-records business, is “returning to growth,” Fitzsimmons wrote.
That provides Oracle with another source of recurring revenue while its infrastructure business expands.
Financing remains the biggest question
The bullish case ultimately depends on whether Oracle can turn its enormous infrastructure investment into revenue and profits quickly enough.
Moerdler said investors remain concerned about Oracle’s profitability and its ability to meet the cash requirements associated with long-term and noncancelable contracts.
The analyst believes the company is nevertheless “nearing the end of their need for additional cash.”
He describes Oracle as being in the “early days” of an investment cycle that could eventually accelerate both revenue and profits.
His $325 price target implies that the shares could more than double from around $145.30.
But the timing remains uncertain.
Fitzsimmons highlighted the ongoing debate over when Oracle’s AI infrastructure spending will begin translating into revenue.
Potential delays in data-center construction could further push out the payoff from the company’s enormous capital commitments.
Singh sees another potential catalyst in Oracle’s deferred revenue.
Growth in deferred revenue in the cloud applications business has outpaced reported revenue growth for two consecutive quarters, suggesting that a backlog of future revenue could be building.
That could result in a “modest upward revision” to Oracle’s current fiscal-year revenue and earnings forecasts, potentially giving the stock a positive reaction after earnings.
Thursday’s results could define Oracle’s AI story
The earnings report therefore represents more than another quarterly test for Oracle.
It could help investors determine whether the company’s transformation into an AI infrastructure powerhouse is progressing quickly enough to justify its massive capital requirements.
For bulls, accelerating OCI growth, strong AI demand, improving pricing and customer prepayments could demonstrate that Oracle is building capacity ahead of a powerful revenue cycle.
For bears, data-center delays, rising debt and uncertain returns on AI spending could reinforce concerns that the company is taking on too much financial risk too early.
As Moerdler put it, “understanding the rest of the company and its ability to fund investment and drive profits are critical whether you are a bull or a bear.”
“In virtually every conversation we have on [Oracle], our clients are interested in not simply what is driving current numbers but getting a sense of how the business will evolve over time as they build all the AI data center capacity” to fulfill remaining performance obligations, he said.
With the options market anticipating an 11.2% post-earnings move, investors appear to be preparing for Oracle to provide some answers.
The size of Thursday’s reaction may ultimately depend less on the headline earnings numbers than on what management says about the cost, timing and returns of its AI infrastructure bet.
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