Oracle Is Having Its Own ‘Code Red’ AI Moment

Anyone wanting reassurance that building the infrastructure for artificial intelligence isn’t going to break the bank, won’t have enjoyed Oracle Corp.’s latest earnings report. Wall Street’s de facto barometer of AI fears served up several unwelcome surprises, including $10 billion of quarterly cash burn and a massive increase in capital spending.

More worrying, it failed to satisfactorily answer two simple questions: Just how much is all of this going to cost, and what happens if its cornerstone customer, OpenAI, can’t pay?