Oracle shares surge 26% on cloud growth and OpenAI energy deal

Oracle surged to a record high in extended trading after the company posted a major increase in bookings and gave an aggressive outlook for its cloud infrastructure business.

Known for its database software, Oracle has recently found success in the competitive cloud computing market.

Earlier this summer, it signed an unprecedented commitment with OpenAI for 4.5 gigawatts of data centre capacity – enough energy to power millions of American homes.

It also counts companies such as ByteDance’s TikTok and Nvidia as major cloud customers.

Such deals helped boost remaining performance obligations – a measure of bookings – to US$455 billion at the end of the fiscal first quarter, Oracle said in a statement on Tuesday.

That was more than four times higher than the same period a year earlier.

The shares soared more than 26 per cent in extended trading after closing at US$241.51 in New York. If those gains hold during regular market hours, it will surpass the last record high of US$256.43 set on August 6. Oracle’s stock was up 45 per cent this year through Tuesday’s close, four times the gain seen in the S&P 500.