Episode summary

Oracle's Force Majeure | Bloomberg Businessweek

Bloomberg Businessweek Daily · · 8 min · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Anurag Rana

Oracle's Force Majeure | Bloomberg Businessweek – Bloomberg Businessweek Daily

Summary

The discussion centered on two related AI infrastructure stories: Oracle’s notice citing force majeure on a massive New Mexico data center, and a separate surge in AI capacity deals after Anthropic signed an $11.6 billion, 7-year contract with Okami Technologies. Anurag Rana of Bloomberg Intelligence argued that both stories fit a broader scramble for computing capacity, where companies are trying to secure CPUs, GPUs and data center space wherever they can.

On Oracle, Rana said the notice should not be read as a sign the company is abandoning the project. He described the issue as one of execution risk across a large, multi-site buildout, with delays possible because of regulatory pushback and local opposition. In his view, the bigger question is whether the New Mexico project is a one-off setback or part of a wider pattern of delays across AI infrastructure builds.

Rana also pushed back on the idea that the Anthropic-Okami deal is simply circular financing. He said the demand is coming from customers that need capacity now, and that financing concerns depend on how the contracts are structured, what backing exists, and how debt is arranged around each project.

Key takeaways

  • Anurag Rana said Oracle’s force majeure notice looks more like a delay-management move than an exit from Project Jupiter.
  • Rana argued the bigger risk for AI data center projects is local regulatory and community opposition, not a lack of tenants.
  • Rana said the Anthropic-Okami contract reflects real customer demand for computing capacity, not manufactured demand.
  • He said financing for these AI infrastructure deals will depend on contract structure, covenants and any chip-provider backing.
  • Rana said Oracle’s exposure also depends on whether frontier model training slows and affects downstream commitments like Stargate.

Notable quotes

“there are they are building multiple data centers in multiple locations”

— Anurag Rana at 6:45

“I think there's a lot of that happening here so I personally am not in that circular financing camp only because the demand is coming from customers”

— Anurag Rana at 5:26

“The question is will the local regulators let it go through”

— Anurag Rana at 8:28

“if you are looking for any way to make money GPU pricing is so high that this may be a good business for everybody to get in”

— Anurag Rana at 2:27

“So again, not so much a near-term problem, but it could be something that happens down the road”

— Anurag Rana at 9:40

How the episode opens

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio news. — You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio.

Hey, um, keep an eye on shares of uh, Okami because it is up about 17.5% here in the market. Yeah, that's why, uh, we need to just talk about it a little bit because, uh, Anthropica signed an 11.6 6 billion 7-year contract with Okami Technologies for computing power, adding to the AI developers growing list of data center deals. I think what's interesting is Okami is going to supply Anthropic access to central processing units.

We're talking about CPUs. Has issued a warrant that gives Anthropic the right to buy series B shares that converts it to common stock. Talk about quite a deal.

And the contract represents the largest deal in Okami's history with the company estimating that its capex spending, its capital spending tied to this one agreement will total about $5.5 billion.

Fortunately, — Talk about something that might — Fortunately is here. — He's Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst uh for Bloomberg intelligence as I mentioned. Check out his research on the terminal. Uh he joins us from our Chicago bureau. I remind everybody where Okami technology plays in in the um AI infrastructure world.

Actually, I wasn't even sure they were playing in that world because before that I thought they were doing something else. But — Well, I know them from the Netflix days many years ago. — I know. But it seems like if you have, you know, free data center capacity, you can go out and you know, sell it to others. maybe, you know, I'll go see if I have computing capacity at home, I can sell it to, you know, any of these frontier labs as well.

From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →

Topics

  • oracle data center
  • force majeure
  • data center delays
  • contractual obligations
  • regulatory setbacks

Companies and tickers mentioned

  • ORCL
  • OWL
  • Oracle Corp.
  • Blue Owl Capital Inc.

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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.

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