Oracle Will Have to Borrow at Least $25b a Year to Fund AI Fantasy, Says Analyst

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

rntn

45 points

15 comments

theregister.comOtherstory

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AI InvestmentOracleTech Bubble

Key topics

AI Investment

Oracle

Tech Bubble

Oracle's massive borrowing to fund AI initiatives has raised concerns among analysts and HN commenters about the sustainability of such investments and the potential for a tech bubble to burst.

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01Story posted
Sep 29, 2025 at 3:06 PM EDT
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Sep 30, 2025 at 4:58 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (15 comments)

Showing 15 comments

gigatexal

3 months ago

3 replies

I'd love for this bubble to pop. I have a bit of cash I'd like to invest in the markets at fair values not these over-hyped AI ones...

baal80spam

3 months ago

1 reply

"The best time to get in was yesterday. The second best time is today."

gigatexal

3 months ago

Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m daily buying and dollar cost averaging in the S&P500 but … I’m hoping for a huge correction, a market melting, recession level one that will cull all these companies with shaky business prospects and revenues. So I can maybe buy Apple and Amazon and Google at close to half what they’re at now which is probably closer to fair.

bryanlarsen

3 months ago

Can we get two birds with one stone? Can we get Oracle to pop too?

more_corn

3 months ago

There’s tail risk protection. But the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Maybe if you could identify potential triggers you could watch for them and then short on the way down.

I am not a doctor and this is not financial advice.

yoyohello13

3 months ago

2 replies

Listening to Larry Ellison talk about his plans for AI and American's data makes my skin crawl. I can't help but feel we are in for some real bad times ahead.

jsbisviewtiful

3 months ago

1 reply

Same. I was always under the impression the governments of the world would put a stop to corporate takeovers of society but unfortunately the complete lack of education and care from citizens kept voting in corrupt capitalist politicians who only care about making profits. A future akin to the Alien, Westworld and Cyberpunk universes is now on a fast track - assuming climate change doesn't wipe us out first.

sekh60

3 months ago

Was kinda hoping we'd have a more Shadowrun dystopia if we had to choose one. At least there would be some cool magic.

IG_Semmelweiss

3 months ago

Larry Ellison’s stock exposure to Oracle is immense, with a 41% stake (1.16 billion shares). That's the vast majority of his wealth!

It would be incredible to see a titan cut to size, when the bank (debtholders) come knocking on his door.

I too agree it would be best to not have Ellison have anything to do with the future of privacy in the US. We can take solace that he's gambling big, and there's a chance we may benefit from his loss

scarface_74

3 months ago

1 reply

This is truly bubble behavior. Open AI is losing billions of dollars and is only sustainable based on continued investor funding. Oracle is banking on money from Open AI.

All of the other BigTech public companies are investing in infrastructure from free cash flow.

more_corn

3 months ago

3 replies

So, when will the music stop? And will you recognize it when it does?

orwin

3 months ago

So, interestingly, the same happened during the dot-com bubble, with less money though, but it kept the bubble afloat for around 6 months for a year (don't make any predictions about now, the amounts aren't the same, neither is global GDP percentage, and borrowing rate can fall to 0).

Cisco and other infrastructure companies 'invested' in dot-com companies, who paid datacenter companies who paid Cisco and infrastructure companies.

When you see Nvidia investing 100 billions into OpenAi who promised to Oracle at least 150 billions of investments (which means oracle RTO on 10 year is like 400 billion now, around 4x what it was before Nvidia investment), and Oracle will buy its chips, which are the cost driver for AI datacenter, from Nvidia.

Which is probably the most circular economy-like capitalism can do, in a way, as a leftist I should be happy.

rsynnott

3 months ago

When the debt markets and VCs stop increasing the amount of money they're willing to hand out (really, it wouldn't even take them stopping handing out money; the constant increases are necessary to keep the lights on). Probably slowly, then all at once, that's how these things usually go.

scarface_74

3 months ago

That’s the beauty of it this time. Money losing companies are staying private and the only public companies that are involved in the Ponzi scheme seem to be Oracle and to a lesser extent Nvidia. But at least Nvidia is not borrowing money for its investments.

Of course Tesla. But it’s always been a meme stock. I don’t see the AI bubble busting and it affecting the S&P 500 that much. Even before AI, the other public tech companies have real business and AI will be a “sustaining innovation” (see Clay Christenson).

For me personally, Gen AI is just another tool in my tool belt when I implement projects - ie another AWS SDK service call (boto3/Bedrock).

Yes if you have a pension, on the other hand, all bets are off since ther do invest in private equity unlike most defined contribution plans.

josefritzishere

3 months ago

The amout of money companies will waste on AI is astounding.

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