Computer software company Oracle (ORCL) is laying off hundreds of employees in its cloud unit as it looks to manage costs while investing in AI infrastructure, Bloomberg reported. The move is part of ORCL’s efforts to focus on high-growth areas such as AI compute and data center expansion. ORCL stock was down about 4% on Wednesday.
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The company has not confirmed the exact number of layoffs, but reports suggest the impact spans teams in the U.S., India, and some other regions. Also, some job cuts are performance-related, and the cloud team is reportedly still hiring new people.
Further, Data Center Dynamics reported that the cuts likely affected OCI’s enterprise engineering division, Fusion ERP, data center operations technicians, technical project managers for the AI/ML team, and the broader OCI AI team.
Oracle Doubles Down on AI
The layoffs come amid Oracle’s push to become a key AI infrastructure provider. It recently launched a new Electronic Health Record (EHR) AI system that allows clinicians to use voice commands to access patient data and receive real-time insights.
Moreover, the company recently inked a massive deal with OpenAI to supply data center power for its Stargate initiative and is investing billions to build out server farms across the U.S. and beyond.
The company is scaling its infrastructure as demand grows, allowing it to offer strong AI services at lower costs and with better performance. Together, these moves are part of Oracle’s push to become a key player in the future of AI enterprise technology.
Is ORCL Stock a Buy?
Overall, ORCL stock has a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 24 Buys and 10 Holds assigned in the last three months. The average Oracle stock price target of $244.66 implies about 0.20% upside from current levels.
