Oracle Strikes 2.8-Gigawatt AI Energy Deal to Power Data Centres After Firing 30,000 Workers Via 6 AM Email

Oracle has secured a deal to purchase up to 2.8 gigawatts of fuel-cell power from Bloom Energy to run artificial intelligence data centres, just two weeks after firing up to 30,000 workers via early morning email to fund the very infrastructure now being powered.

The enterprise software company announced on Monday that an initial 1.2 gigawatts of capacity has already been contracted, with deployment underway across Oracle projects in the United States and continuing into 2027.

A gigawatt provides enough electricity to supply approximately 750,000 US households.

Workers Fired, Data Centres Powered

On 31 March 2026, employees across the United States, India, Canada, Mexico, and Uruguay received termination emails from 'Oracle Leadership' at approximately 6 a.m. local time with no prior warning from managers or human resources.

The email stated that, following a review of the company's business needs, a decision had been made to eliminate their roles as part of a broader organisational change. Access to company systems was cut immediately.

Oracle has not publicly confirmed the total number of affected workers. Investment bank TD Cowen estimates the cuts hit between 20,000 and 30,000 employees, roughly 18% of the company's global workforce of approximately 162,000 people.

TD Cowen projects the layoffs will free up $8 billion (£6 billion) to $10 billion (£7.4 billion) in annual cash flow. The company needs that money to fund its $50 billion (£37 billion) capital spending plan for AI data centres this year.

Record Profits, Record Debt

The contradiction at the centre of Oracle's strategy is plain. The company posted a 27% jump in net income last quarter, reaching $3.7 billion (£2.7 billion). Its remaining performance obligations, a measure of contracted future revenue, stood at $553 billion (£409 billion), up 325% year over year.

Oracle has also raised approximately $58 billion (£43 billion) in new debt within recent months to finance its data centre buildout. Multiple US banks have reportedly stepped back from financing some of its projects.

The $300 billion (£222 billion) deal Oracle signed with OpenAI in September 2025 for cloud infrastructure beginning in 2027 is driving the urgency. The Stargate project, a joint venture with SoftBank and OpenAI that President Trump announced in January 2025, commits to $500 billion (£370 billion) in AI infrastructure investment.

Bloom Energy Stock Soars

Bloom Energy shares surged more than 14% in Monday's post-market trading, climbing past $200 (£148) for the first time in the company's history following the deal announcement.

'By rapidly deploying Bloom's reliable, efficient fuel cell energy, we are quickly meeting the demands of our customers across the United States,' said Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The fuel cell systems generate electricity directly on-site at data centres using natural gas or hydrogen, bypassing traditional grid constraints that can delay projects by years.

The Maths of Replacement

Nina Lewis, a security alert manager who spent 34 years at Oracle, posted on LinkedIn after receiving her termination notice.

'Well, after 30+ years at Oracle, I join the 30,000 or so laid off today,' Lewis wrote in an edited version of a post that originally cited 34 years of service.

For those fired, the calculation is blunt. Workers were eliminated to fund buildings. Those buildings will run AI workloads. The energy deal announced Monday will power those workloads. The logic of the AI replacement cycle has never been illustrated so directly.