Oracle Plans Massive 30,000 Job Cuts to Fuel AI Data Center Expansion

The report from CIO, citing an investment bank TD Cowen, said the company cut about 10,000 jobs in late 2025 as part of a $1.6 billion restructuring plan. The total potential layoffs would be the largest in Oracle's recent history, while TD Cowen estimated the proposed job reductions could free up $8 billion to $10 billion in cash flow.

Both equity and debt investors have questioned Oracle's ability to fund the buildout, and several US banks have recently pulled back from lending for the expansion which led to Oracle taking the route of layoffs, the report indicated.

"Multiple Oracle data-centre leases that were under negotiation with private operators struggled to secure financing, in turn preventing Oracle from securing the data-centre capacity via a lease," it said.

Oracle was yet to comment on the report.

The research house put the company's required capital expenditure for the project at roughly $156 billion, and Oracle is exploring a range of measures to reduce its capital burden.

Oracle considered the sale of its healthcare software unit Cerner, which it acquired for $28.3 billion in 2022.

It also asked new customers to supply their own hardware under a "bring your own chip" model.

The software company told investors it expects to raise $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026 to build additional cloud capacity infrastructure.

The news follows reports of Amazon laying off 16,000 employees as part of its AI restructure plan. In October 2025, Amazon reduced 14,000 white-collar employees from its workforce, around half of its total target 30,000.

Though the job cut was the largest layoff in Amazon's three-decade history after 27,000-job cuts in 2022, it represented a small portion of Amazon's 1.58 million employees.

- IANS