Oracle is positioning itself to become a dominant force in cloud infrastructure and generative AI, with some analysts suggesting it could rival Amazon Web Services in scale by the end of the decade. Once seen as a latecomer to the cloud race, Oracle has transformed into a serious contender, driven by massive investments in infrastructure, a unique advantage in enterprise data, and a bold AI strategy led by CEO Safra Catz and Chairman Larry Ellison. The company’s cloud infrastructure business, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), has seen explosive growth. In the most recent quarter, Oracle reported a record $455.3 billion in remaining performance obligations—up 4.6 times year-over-year and 2.3 times from the prior quarter. This backlog signals strong future demand. Catz projected OCI revenues of $18 billion in fiscal 2026, growing to $144 billion by fiscal 2030, with a steep climb from $73 billion in 2028 and $114 billion in 2029. This forecast is unprecedented in both scale and specificity. It reflects confidence in Oracle’s ability to capture enterprise demand for AI infrastructure, particularly in AI inference—the processing of AI models in real time. Ellison emphasized that AI inference will power everything from robotic factories and autonomous vehicles to drug discovery and legal automation. Oracle’s edge lies in its vast repository of high-value, private enterprise data, which it can vectorize and connect directly to leading large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Llama—all accessible within Oracle Cloud. Oracle’s new AI database enables customers to store and query data in ways that AI can understand, allowing complex, reasoning-driven questions to be answered using both private and public data—without compromising security. Ellison described this as a leap beyond simple chatbots: AI will now write the programs that automate business processes, creating what he calls “agentic AI” at scale. The company is no longer building traditional applications. Instead, it’s generating them through its AI stack, with no separate charge for the AI layer itself. The applications themselves are AI-driven, more intelligent, and designed to sell more effectively. This model could prove more sustainable than OpenAI’s, which relies on API usage fees and subscription models. Oracle’s capital expenditures have surged, nearly matching its cloud revenue in fiscal 2025. While this might raise concerns for traditional investors, Oracle’s deep cash reserves, profitable enterprise software business, and strong customer base allow it to sustain heavy investment. The company doesn’t build entire data centers but supplies the high-performance compute, storage, and networking hardware that power them—making it a key infrastructure partner for AI model developers, including OpenAI. Despite the high spending, the path to profitability is clear. As OCI revenues grow faster than capital expenses, margins are expected to improve. The company’s overall cloud business—encompassing SaaS, PaaS, and infrastructure—is projected to exceed $100 billion in revenue by 2029, with OCI alone reaching $114 billion. In the latest quarter, Oracle posted $14.93 billion in revenue, up 12.2%, with operating income at $4.28 billion and net income at $2.93 billion. While cash reserves dipped to just over $11 billion, this reflects strategic reinvestment rather than weakness. Oracle’s transformation is complete. It’s no longer just a database and enterprise software giant. It’s becoming the backbone of the AI era—leveraging decades of enterprise trust, a unique data advantage, and a clear vision for the future. Whether it reaches AWS’s scale remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Oracle is now a central player in the global AI infrastructure race.