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Oracle Cites 'Force Majeure' to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-24/oracle-cites-force-majeure-to-shield-itself-on-controversial-data-center
45•simonpure•2h ago

Comments

toomuchtodo•1h ago
Oracle's $165B New Mexico Data Center Plan Hits a Gas Pipeline Delay - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321142 - August 2026
shimman•1h ago
Finding out that Oracle has a bond rating of BBB- [1] (one step above junk bonds) feels very appropriate for such a company with such a sordid history.

[1] https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/regulatory/article/-/vie...

apercu•1h ago
Still too high of a rating.
someonebaggy•34m ago
It's based solely on thejr expected ability to replay, not their ethics.
CodeCompost•56m ago
'Force Majeure' is a good way to describe their incompetence.
Analemma_•45m ago
Right, Oracle is at the bottom of the heap (they borrowed the most with the least initial credibility— who the fuck seriously thinks Oracle was ever going to be a major player in AI), so weakness in the market will appear with them first. But I think it will bubble its way up.
someonebaggy•35m ago
Oracle's specialty is extracting money from the government for everything IT-related. Why wouldn't they be a major player? Investors might not have foreseen DOGE and Grok.
potatototoo99•53m ago
Will be interesting to see what excuses these companies will come up with to justify stopping investment in AI without spelling it out. The first one was already announced: it's going to kill everyone so we need to proceed more slowly.
WokeUp420•48m ago
The number of datacenters needing to come online doesn't add up to me. It's suspicious
echelon•40m ago
When our spot instances go away and don't come back, that's a sign that there's not enough capacity.

There is more demand for compute than there is supply, and that demand is going up.

Look at all of the things that have been and are being automated and realize that we're year 6 into a hundred year journey.

Look around you at all the things that aren't automated. They will be.

The world you grew up in won't be here for much longer. We're going through a transformation even more dramatic than the industrial revolution. There were no airplanes and then we landed on the moon.

kilroy123•37m ago
How so? It's clear the hyperscalers can't keep up with demand.
dofm•24m ago
Is it clear they need anything like the unbuilt capacity that is in the pipeline?

They are using tiny fractions of the data centres they claim to have "built".

There's a significant risk of a Chinese real-estate bubble here.

blakesterz•39m ago
Reuters has a non-paywalled (short) report with a bit of detail:

https://www.reuters.com/business/oracle-cites-force-majeure-...

toasty228•39m ago
No shit, you're telling me mixing Trump, Musk, Oracle and Softbank would end up in yet another scam? Just a way to quickly pump stocks and get money? No way duuude, who would have thought?!
bpodgursky•36m ago
Everyone is interpreting this as a sign the bubble is bursting, when the actual story is costs for materials and labor are going up and delays are happening because so many data centers are getting built.

If Oracle was able to build the data center under-cost and faster than expected, that would be a better sign the bubble was bursting!

toasty228•34m ago
What does it change exactly? It's not like gas or materials are going to get cheaper any time soon. It can burst for a whole lot of reasons, including the 2nd coming of Jesus or resources price... it's not like people have been calling AI ressource intensive for years right ?
mamonster•31m ago
Right, so the presumably the revenue projections aren't increasing at the same pace and the financials don't make sense anymore. Which is potentially a sign of the bubble bursting.
bpodgursky•28m ago
I mean the literal guidance is that Oracle may not make money on the datacenter by 2028 because they won't be able to turn it on.

How profitable a datacenter is, is kind of irrelevant to the convo, if you are unable to power it due to material shortages.

mamonster•18m ago
>How profitable a datacenter is, is kind of irrelevant to the convo, if you are unable to power it due to material shortages.

It isn't irrelevant, because they have to make money to be built. The debt for these projects was already issued, so you have to pay the coupons. If Oracle doesn't pay the developer is gonna suffer on their end.

ozlikethewizard•34m ago
Doesn't 'Force Majeure' mean exceptional events outside ones control? Pretty sure everything involved here is Oracles own making lol
chuckadams•16m ago
"No one could have predicted that permits and infrastructure necessary for this project's completion would be delayed". Except for every project that's needed permits and infrastructure ever.

I hope whoever buys Oracle fires Larry by email.

mckirk•15m ago
"Well a wave hit it"
Dangeranger•25m ago
A better overview of the situation with more context exists on Yahoo Finance [0], also there is no paywall.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/oracle-cite...

0cf8612b2e1e•14m ago
Surely this will assuage the creditors that Oracle is going to pay back its $100B+ loans.

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Oracle Cites 'Force Majeure' to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-24/oracle-cites-force-majeure-to-shield-itself-on...
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