On Wednesday, Oracle told investors that it would ramp up capital expenditures in the current fiscal year to $50 billion from an earlier forecast of $35 billion because of new contracts from the likes of Meta and Nvidia.
That's not the only way the software giant plans to supply robust computing power to meet soaring demand. It's also ratcheting up leases.
As of Nov. 30, Oracle had $248 billion in lease commitments for data centers and cloud capacity commitments that will run for 15 to 19 years, the company disclosed in a quarterly filing on Thursday. That's up 148% from the end of August.
Oracle had $10 billion in cloud capacity arrangements at the end of the quarter, according to the filing.
Over the past decade, Oracle has diversified into cloud infrastructure, where it now goes up against Amazon, Microsoft and Google to rent out access to servers, storage and Nvidia graphics chips for running artificial intelligence models. OpenAI has become a major Oracle cloud customer, having announced a commitment worth over $300 billion in September.
Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor that for years served as the startup's sole cloud provider, has also ramped up leases to augment its in-house data center footprint. Microsoft has struck deals with so-called neoclouds CoreWeave and Lambda.
Oracle worked with startup Crusoe to enable the first phase of OpenAI's Stargate data center site in Abilene, Texas.
Investors are questioning how Oracle will pay for its AI data center build-outs, RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria, who has the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock, told CNBC earlier this week.
In September Oracle raised $18 billion in new debt. By the end of November, the company owed over $124 billion when including operating lease liabilities, according to the filing, up from about $89 billion a year earlier.
"In terms of funding our growth, there are a variety of sources available to us throughout our debt structure in public bond, bank and private debt markets," Doug Kehring, Oracle's principal financial officer, told analysts on Wednesday's conference call.
Some customers can also bring their own chips, which could lower Oracle's costs, said Clay Magouyrk, one of the company's two recently appointed CEOs.
In its earnings release on Wednesday, Oracle reported weaker-than-expected revenue despite booming demand for its AI infrastructure. The stock ended the day down almost 11% on Thursday.