Oracle to invest $3 billion in AI, cloud expansion in Germany, Netherlands

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(Reuters) -Oracle will invest $3 billion in Germany and the Netherlands over the next five years to bolster its infrastructure powering artificial intelligence and cloud offerings in the European market, the company said on Tuesday.

The Austin, Texas-based company joins a growing list of technology firms that have pledged tens of billions of dollars to meet robust cloud computing demand as businesses increasingly deploy AI workloads.

Last year, Amazon said it would invest 10 billion euros in Germany, bringing its total planned investments in the European country to 17.8 billion euros.

Together, big tech companies are expected to spend $320 billion on AI this year. On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers.

Demand has been growing for the cloud and AI services offered by firms including Oracle, Amazon.com, Microsoft and Google because they can replace or outperform software created by traditional IT firms, some analysts say.

Oracle would spend $2 billion in Germany and $1 billion in the Netherlands, the company said in separate statements.

Its shares rose 2% in trading before the bell. They have risen nearly 38% so far this year.

The company expects its capital spending to surpass $25  billion in fiscal 2026, with the bulk of the expenditure committed to data-center infrastructure, including for AI.

“As we bring more capacity online, our revenue and profit growth will further accelerate,” Oracle CEO Safra Catz said in June.

Oracle has secured a deal with an undisclosed client that is expected to generate over $30 billion in annual revenue for the company starting in fiscal year 2028, according to a regulatory filing last month.

(Reporting by Bipasha Dey, Dheeraj Kumar and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Anil D’Silva)