Oracle shares slide as earnings fail to ease AI bubble fears

Oracle shares slide as earnings fail to ease AI bubble fears

OCI services major AI technology developers whose demand for Oracle's AI infrastructure helped the company's shares reach new highs this fall but Wednesday's results failed to quell fears about a potential AI bubble.

Revenue growth was up 14%, with a 68% surge in sales at its AI business, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), the company said.

The company reported revenue of $16.06bn (£11.99bn) for the three months that ended in November, compared with the $16.21bn projected by analysts.

Shares of cloud computing giant Oracle plunged more than 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the company's revenues fell short of Wall Street expectations.

In September, Oracle agreed a highly sought-after contract with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which agreed to purchase $300bn in computing power from Oracle over five years.

Oracle chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison briefly became the world's richest man in after the announcement.

But the firm's shares have lost 40% of their value since peaking three months ago. Still, they are up by more than a third since the start of the year.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Mr Ellison struck a cautious tone.

"There are going to be a lot of changes in AI technology over the next few years and we must remain agile in response to those changes," he wrote.

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