I’ve watched plenty of companies chase a hot trend and spend their way into trouble. The story usually looks thrilling on the way up and painful on the way down.
Oracle is the latest name testing that thesis. The software giant is pouring tens of billions of dollars into data centers to grab a slice of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
The growth is real. So is the bill.
And Oracle’s most recent quarterly report shows just how big that bill has become.
Oracle’s cloud pivot is expensive
For decades, Oracle (ORCL) operated an asset-light business. It sold software licenses and support contracts. Those products carried fat margins and needed little upfront spending.
That model is changing fast.
Oracle now wants to compete with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in cloud computing. To do that, it has to buy chips, lease buildings, and build data centers.
All of that costs significant capital.
The shift is clear in the cash flow. In its 10-Q for the quarter ended Feb. 28, 2026:
- Oracle reported a free cash flow of negative $24.7 billion over the trailing four quarters.
- A year earlier, that number was a positive $5.8 billion.
- Over the past 12 months, Oracle spent $48.25 billion building out its cloud, up 223% from $14.93 billion a year ago.
- Put simply, Oracle now spends more than $2 on infrastructure for every $1 its operations bring in.
How Oracle is funding its giant AI bet
Oracle’s cash balance looks healthy at first glance. The company held $38.46 billion in cash at the end of February, up from $10.79 billion last May.
But that cash balance increase was tied to its capital raising efforts.
- The filing shows Oracle raised about $42.7 billion from new debt issued in September 2025 and February 2026.
- It pulled in another $5 billion from the sale of convertible preferred stock.
- It also booked $2.7 billion from the sale of its stake in chipmaker Ampere.
Strip out those one-time moves, and Oracle’s cash pile would have shrunk rather than grown.
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The borrowing has stacked up quickly.
Oracle’s total notes payable jumped from $92.57 billion in May 2025 to roughly $134.6 billion by late February.
That’s more than $42 billion in fresh debt in nine months. Lease commitments tied to data centers added billions more.
To keep the money flowing, Oracle has lined up backups.
In February 2026, it set up a program to sell up to $20 billion in new stock over time. In March, it replaced a $6 billion credit line with a larger $10 billion facility.
What Oracle’s debt-fueled growth means for investors
So will Oracle run out of cash? Probably not.
As long as banks and bond buyers keep lending, Oracle can keep building. It can refinance old debt with new debt and tap the stock market when needed.
However, every new share sold dilutes existing shareholders’ wealth, and every new bond adds interest expense that affects net income.
Related: Dan Ives sends a blunt message to investors fleeing Oracle stock
Oracle is betting that AI customers will fill these data centers for years to come. If that demand cools in the near term, the company is left with huge fixed costs and far less revenue to cover them.
During the recent earnings call, Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk stated:
“Demand for AI infrastructure, both GPU and CPU continues to exceed supply. This is directly visible in our $553 billion RPO.”
Cloud computing also carries thinner margins than Oracle’s old software business.
The company’s cloud and software expenses rose from $7.67 billion to $11.8 billion over nine months, a sign of how costly the new model is to run.
What’s next for Oracle stock?
Oracle’s cloud pivot could still pay off in a big way. Demand for AI computing is enormous, and the company has the contracts to prove it.
But this is no longer the steady, cash-rich Oracle that investors leaned on for years. It has become a heavily borrowed company, making one of the largest bets in tech.
For investors, that means the upside comes with significant downside. Valued at a market cap of $615 billion, ORCL stock is already down 35% from all-time highs.
Oracle’s growth story is exciting, but the financing behind it is fragile. And that mix is why its cloud pivot still looks like a high-risk bet.
