Oracle layoffs: Software company likely to cut 3,000 jobs in India. Where is the money moving?

Oracle is reportedly planning a fresh round of job cuts that could affect up to 3,000 employees in India as the technology company redirects its spending before the start of the new quarter, according to a report by Moneycontrol citing officials familiar with the development.

The precise extent of Oracle’s proposed layoffs remains unknown. However, figures reportedly being discussed internally indicate that the company may cut between 7,000 and 10,000 jobs worldwide, with approximately 3,000 employees in India potentially affected.

However, the reported reductions come as Oracle seeks to trim payroll and control spending ahead of a new quarter, while committing billions of dollars to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure.

Industry experts have suggested that September 1 could be a key date in the restructuring process. Managers have reportedly been asked to identify roles that could be eliminated.

Oracle is also seeking to reduce spending across teams as it reassesses its capital allocation and shifts resources towards infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence.

Oracle revenue hits $67.4 billion as AI costs rise

Oracle reported $67.4 billion in revenue for fiscal 2026, up 17% year on year. Its cloud business grew even faster, with cloud revenue rising 39% to $34 billion, while cloud infrastructure revenue jumped 77% to $18.1 billion. In the fourth quarter alone, cloud infrastructure revenue surged 93%.

However, sustaining this growth requires massive investment in computing infrastructure, particularly as Oracle expands its AI capabilities and competes for high-value AI workloads.

For fiscal 2026, Oracle reported negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion. That does not mean Oracle’s underlying business stopped generating cash. In fact, the company generated a record $32 billion in operating cash flow during the year, up 54%. But its enormous capital expenditure programme consumed much more cash than the business generated after operating expenses.

Oracle workforce fell 13 per cent in a year

The reported layoffs would follow a ginormous reduction in Oracle's workforce over the past year. As of May 31, 2026, Oracle employed approximately 141,000 people, down from about 162,000 employees a year earlier, representing a decline of roughly 13 per cent.

According to Oracle's annual filings, sales and marketing saw the largest reduction, with nearly 6,000 jobs cut. Workforce reductions were also made across cloud services, services, and research and development.

The hardware division saw comparatively fewer cuts, indicating that Oracle is preserving areas linked to its expanding infrastructure ambitions.

Where is Oracle moving its money?

Oracle, traditionally known for its database software and cloud services, is investing heavily in infrastructure needed to train and operate artificial intelligence models.

OpenAI has signed a $300 billion, five-year contract with Larry Ellison's Oracle to purchase computing capacity. Elon Musk's xAI also uses Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to operate its Grok models for businesses.

In February 2026, Oracle announced plans to raise up to $50 billion through a combination of debt and equity financing. The funds are expected to support demand from major customers, including Nvidia, Meta, OpenAI and TikTok.

Oracle has already relied heavily on debt to finance its expansion. In September 2025, Oracle sold $18 billion in bonds.

The spending reflects the growing cost of competing in artificial intelligence, where technology companies are investing heavily in data centres, computing capacity and other infrastructure.

Oracle’s AI contracts soar as capital spending surges

Oracle ended fiscal 2026 with $638 billion in remaining performance obligations (RPO), up 363% from the previous year. Much of the increase came from large AI contracts signed during the second half of the year.

Oracle said prepaid and customer-supplied hardware linked to these contracts amounted to $75 billion, helping reduce the amount of capital it needs to raise for some data-centre projects.

At the same time, Oracle’s capital expenditure jumped to $55.7 billion in fiscal 2026 from $21.2 billion a year earlier, largely because of data-centre expansion.

Is OpenAI behind Oracle's AI spending?

OpenAI's growing demand for computing power has become an important factor in Oracle's push into AI infrastructure, as the company commits substantial resources to meeting the computing needs of the ChatGPT maker and other major customers.

“The AI bubble is actually an OpenAI bubble,” AI critic and researcher Ed Zitron had said, arguing that the ChatGPT maker sits in the centre of today's AI boom. If it collapses, he warns, it could become “the Lehman Brothers of the AI bubble.”

“OpenAI is the reason anyone cares about AI,” Zitron had earlier said and further added, “you can talk all you want about open source models or Anthropic — but without OpenAI, the AI industry doesn’t exist, and the justification for trillions of dollars of capex evaporates.”

However, Viram Shah, Founder and CEO of Vested Finance, had earlier told LiveMint that the major technology companies involved in the AI infrastructure race do not have the same level of exposure to OpenAI.

For Oracle, its $300 billion, five-year agreement with OpenAI has helped underpin the company's aggressive expansion of computing infrastructure. As Oracle pours capital into meeting this demand, the reported layoffs raise a broader question about whether the company is shifting resources away from parts of its existing workforce and towards the infrastructure required to service its biggest AI customers.

Oracle layoffs reflect wider AI spending shift

Oracle is not alone in cutting costs while increasing spending on artificial intelligence. Microsoft has reportedly placed around 500 employees in India on performance improvement plans, with estimates suggesting that roughly 2 per cent of its Indian workforce could be affected.

For Oracle, the reported job cuts come alongside one of its biggest strategic shifts in years. As the company seeks to reduce payroll and other expenses, billions of dollars are being directed towards cloud capacity, data centres and AI infrastructure.