OpenAI’s $300B Deal Could Make Oracle the Weak Link in the AI Boom

Daragh Thomas

Wed, September 2, 2026 at 8:44 PM GMT+3 3 min read

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Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) could become a weak link in the AI boom if OpenAI runs into trouble, according to Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Sebastian Mallaby.

"If OpenAI runs into trouble, I think we can say that there's a good chance that Oracle may also run into trouble," Mallaby said on CFR's The Spillover podcast, pointing to Oracle's heavier debt load and dependence on OpenAI.

The warning comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he is seeing signs of "unsustainable silliness" in the wider compute buildout.

Oracle Is Taking More Risk Than Its Rivals

Mallaby said Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta entered the AI boom with stronger balance sheets and more room to fund expansion internally. Oracle, by contrast, has relied much more heavily on borrowing to finance its data-center buildout.

Its dependence on OpenAI adds another layer of risk. S&P Global cut Oracle's credit rating to BBB- on July 9, leaving it one notch above junk, and estimated that roughly half of Oracle's $638 billion in contracted future revenue is tied to OpenAI.

The ratings agency also expects Oracle to spend $90 billion to $95 billion on capital expenditure in fiscal 2027.

Oracle plans to raise another $20 billion through an equity offering this year to help fund the expansion.

That burden is partly offset by strong demand. Customers are prepaying or supplying hardware for $75 billion of Oracle's largest AI contracts, and its cloud infrastructure revenue grew 77% in fiscal 2026.

The $300 Billion OpenAI Question

OpenAI has agreed to buy roughly $300 billion of Oracle computing capacity over five years starting in 2027, which works out to about $60 billion a year.

That is more than OpenAI's current reported annualized revenue of around $40 billion.

Mallaby noted that the $40 billion figure is revenue, not cash available to fund those commitments, meaning OpenAI will need to keep growing rapidly and raising outside capital to support commitments of that size.

Altman Sees 'Unsustainable Silliness'

Altman remains confident in OpenAI's own compute plans, saying the company expects to use the capacity profitably.

His concern is the wider buildout. He pointed to new neoclouds promising huge amounts of capacity without enough revenue or committed customers to support it, describing parts of the boom as "unsustainable silliness."

Asked whether a broader bust could reach OpenAI, Altman said, "If the whole economy blows up, yes," adding that it could affect the company's ability to "confidently pay for the compute" it has committed to.

Traders See 2027 as More Likely

An IPO could give OpenAI another source of capital as its roughly $300 billion Oracle commitment begins ramping in 2027.

Kalshi traders currently price an 85% chance that OpenAI does not announce an IPO by Dec. 31, but put the chance of an announcement by March 31, 2027 at 48%.

That points to early 2027 as the more plausible window for OpenAI to tap public markets just as its Oracle obligations start to grow.

Kalshi and Benzinga have an existing data collaboration agreement.

Image: Shutterstock

This article OpenAI's $300B Deal Could Make Oracle the Weak Link in the AI Boom originally appeared on Benzinga.com

OpenAI’s $300B Deal Could Make Oracle the Weak Link in the AI Boom

Oracle Is Taking More Risk Than Its Rivals

The $300 Billion OpenAI Question

Altman Sees 'Unsustainable Silliness'

Traders See 2027 as More Likely

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