Forget The Chips: Oracle Wins Phase 2 of AI

Investors watched Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) surge to a closing price of $198.38 on Dec. 22, marking a gain of over 3% on heavy trading volume. While the broader technology sector has spent the last two years obsessing over which company manufactures the best artificial intelligence (AI) chips, the market is beginning to shift its focus.

Two developments—a massive U.S. joint venture and a critical infrastructure project in Michigan—suggest that the AI trade is moving into a new phase.

Phase one of the AI boom was about hardware procurement. During this time, companies spent billions buying processors from designers like NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA). Phase two, however, is all about deployment.

These powerful chips require a place to live—massive, secure data centers with immense power capacity.

Based on recent strategic moves, Oracle has emerged not as a competitor to the chipmakers but as the essential utility provider required to run them.

For investors, this distinction is critical: Oracle doesn't need to win the chip war; it just needs to rent the space where the winner lives.

The Infrastructure Engine: Building the AI Factory

Oracle’s transition from a legacy software company to a cloud infrastructure giant is no longer a projection; it is evident in the hard numbers. In the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, the company reported growth metrics that outpaced many of its hyperscale competitors.

• Cloud Infrastructure Growth: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) revenue grew by 68% year-over-year.
• AI Demand: Revenue specifically related to graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips that power AI, jumped 177%.
• Capacity Delivery: The company delivered nearly 400 megawatts of capacity in the quarter to meet this surging demand.

A key driver of this success is the company’s strategic pivot to Chip Neutrality. Oracle recently sold its stake in Ampere, a proprietary chipmaker, netting a $2.7 billion pre-tax gain. This move signals that Oracle is no longer interested in fighting a hardware war. Instead, it is deepening partnerships with Nvidia and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) to become the most flexible distributor of computing power. By focusing on infrastructure rather than silicon, Oracle reduces manufacturing risk while still capturing the upside of the AI boom.

This strategy faced a real-world test recently regarding a planned $10 billion AI supercluster in Michigan. Last week, financing partner Blue Owl Capital (NYSE: OWL) withdrew from the project, raising fears that Oracle might struggle to fund its ambitious buildout. However, on Dec. 22, Oracle confirmed that the project is proceeding "on schedule," and the developer said it has chosen a new equity partner, though the firm was not named. This rapid resolution demonstrates that capital markets remain eager to fund Oracle's expansion, effectively removing an execution risk for the company.

Security as a Strategy: Validating the Sovereign Cloud

The most headline-grabbing news of the day is the confirmation of the TikTok U.S. joint venture. A consortium led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and investment firm MGX has agreed to acquire a 45% stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations. While the headlines focus on the app, the deal's details reveal a much bigger story for Oracle shareholders.

The deal structure breaks down as follows:

• Oracle: 15% Ownership Stake.
• Silver Lake: 15% Ownership Stake.
• MGX: 15% Ownership Stake.
• Operational Role: Oracle will serve as the platform's exclusive cloud provider.

For investors, the value of this deal goes far beyond owning a piece of a popular social media app. This transaction validates Oracle’s Sovereign Cloud strategy. Sovereign cloud involves physically separating and ring-fencing data so that it remains within a specific national jurisdiction and adheres to strict security protocols.

By meeting the U.S. government's demanding national security requirements for TikTok, Oracle is demonstrating its capabilities to the rest of the market. If Oracle is trusted to secure the data for one of the most scrutinized apps in the world, it becomes a logical default choice for other highly regulated sectors. Industries such as defense, healthcare, and finance often cannot use public clouds due to privacy concerns. The TikTok deal acts as a proof of concept that Oracle can deliver the Sovereign AI security these industries require.

Revenue Visibility: The $523 Billion Safety Net

To support these massive contracts, Oracle is spending heavily. Capital expenditures (CapEx) hit $12 billion in the second quarter, and the company raised its full-year spending forecast by approximately $15 billion. Typically, such high spending might worry investors about cash flow and debt levels. However, this spending is backed by a massive safety net that changes the investment calculus.

Oracle reported Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) of $523.3 billion, an increase of 438% year-over-year.

In plain English, RPO represents a backlog of signed contracts that have not yet been fulfilled. Customers have already committed to paying this money; Oracle just needs to build the data centers to service them. This creates a unique dynamic for the stock:

• Success-Based Capital: Oracle is not building data centers on speculation or hype. It is deploying capital to fulfill invoices that are already waiting.
• Revenue Visibility: This level of backlog provides a floor for the stock price. Even if the economy slows, Oracle has half a trillion dollars' worth of work to do.
• Future Growth: Management raised its fiscal year 2027 revenue outlook by roughly $4 billion, signaling that it expects to convert this backlog into cash faster than anticipated.

The Value Play in a Hype Market

As the artificial intelligence market matures, capital is rotating. Investors are moving funds from companies that build the hardware to those that provide the critical infrastructure. Oracle successfully transitioned from a traditional database firm to a modern cloud leader, and the market is rewarding that shift.

Trading at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of approximately 37x, Oracle offers exposure to the AI sector at a valuation that is often more reasonable than pure-play hardware manufacturers.

With the TikTok deal securing a massive anchor tenant and the Michigan project back on track, the company has cleared significant hurdles that were previously holding the stock back.

Furthermore, Oracle is looking ahead to Phase Three of AI: Reasoning.

The company recently launched its AI Data Platform, which allows customers to use models like GPT-5 to reason across data stored in Oracle and non-Oracle databases alike.

As the demand for data security and capacity increases, Oracle’s unique combination of physical infrastructure, sovereign security, and enterprise software positions it to capture long-term value.

For investors seeking the next logical step in the AI trade, Oracle presents a compelling case for growth, backed by hundreds of billions in committed revenue.

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The article "Forget The Chips: Oracle Wins Phase 2 of AI" first appeared on MarketBeat.