Oracle plans to invest $3 billion over the next five years in Germany and the Netherlands

Oracle has shared plans to invest $3 billion over the next five years to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure in Germany and the Netherlands, with Germany getting the larger share of the allocation; $2 billion vs the Netherlands’s $1 billion.

According to the company’s message on Tuesday, the plan will focus on the enhancement of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to meet growing demand for AI and cloud services in the Europe region.

In Germany, it will aim to expand AI infrastructure capacity in the Oracle Cloud Frankfurt Region by supporting critical industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services, without compromising on the EU’s data sovereignty goals.

The Netherlands will see the $1 billion target significant expansion of AI infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud Amsterdam Region, with a focus on sectors like financial services, logistics, life sciences, and energy.

It will also include support for startups and SMEs, with offerings like the Amsterdam Commercial Cloud Region, OCI Dedicated Region, and Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud tasked with ensuring compliance with European data regulations.

Oracle aims to capitalize on the growing demand for cloud computing

Since the AI boom, there has been increased demand for the cloud and AI services offered by firms like Oracle, as they have the ability to replace or, in some cases, outperform software modeled by traditional IT firms.

Its shares, which have already risen nearly 38% so far this year, have responded positively to the news, surging 2% in trading before the bell.

The company expects its capital spending to surpass $25  billion in fiscal 2026, and the bulk of the expenditure will be committed to data center infrastructure, including for AI.

“As we bring more capacity online, our revenue and profit growth will further accelerate,” Oracle CEO Safra Catz stated in June.

A regulatory filing from the same month also revealed that Oracle landed a deal with an undisclosed client that is reportedly expected to produce over $30 billion in annual revenue for the company starting in fiscal year 2028.

Oracle’s investment aligns with a broader trend among tech giants

Big tech companies are expected to spend up to $320 billion on AI this year. Oracle is one of the latest companies to join the campaign in response to the growing desire of businesses to deploy AI workloads.

Last year, Amazon announced plans to invest 10 billion euros in Germany, raising its total potential investments in the European country to 17.8 billion euros.

On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers. The famous tech mogul has been going above and beyond with respect to hiring for its artificial intelligence (AI) unit, even making headlines for allegedly poaching talent from its rival ChatGPT maker OpenAI by tempting them with $100 million pay packages.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, tagged the aggressive recruitment tactic as “distasteful” and potentially harmful to corporate culture.

Zuckerberg also reportedly set his sights on Apple Inc.’s staff, with Bloomberg citing sources that claimed Meta offered a hefty pay package exceeding $200 million to lure distinguished Apple Inc. engineer Ruoming Pang for its superintelligence team.

Apple reportedly failed to match Meta’s offer, claiming it would “far exceed” the pay packages of several management members, including CEO Tim Cook.

So far, Meta has been able to onboard at least 10 former OpenAI researchers, including leading OpenAI scientist Lucas Beyer, who co-created the vision transformer. It has also poached recognizable names from Google, Anthropic, and other startups.

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