Investing.com -- Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) pushed back against recent media reports about its flagship Abilene, Texas AI data center, stating that the facility remains on track and that the company has secured the full 4.5 gigawatts of capacity committed to OpenAI. Shares of Oracle last traded down 1.2% at $152.96 in pre-open trading despite the denial amid broader stock market weakness.

Bloomberg reported on March 6 that Oracle and OpenAI had abandoned plans to expand the Abilene facility, citing prolonged financing negotiations and OpenAI's changing needs. The report also indicated that Meta Platforms was considering leasing the planned expansion site from developer Crusoe, with Nvidia facilitating discussions and posting a $150 million deposit.

"Crusoe and Oracle are operating in lockstep to deliver one of the world's largest AI Data centers in Abilene at record-breaking pace," Oracle stated. "Two buildings are completely operational and the rest of the campus is on track." A Crusoe spokesperson separately confirmed: "Together, Crusoe and Oracle are operating in lockstep to deliver one of the world's largest AI factories in Abilene. Our collaboration can deliver massive-scale infrastructure faster than anyone else in the industry."

Oracle also addressed concerns about its OpenAI commitments, stating the company "has completed leasing for the additional 4.5GW to deliver on our commitments to OpenAI," though it did not specify where all that capacity is located beyond Abilene. The company did not directly respond to reports that buildings experienced reliability issues earlier this year when they went offline for days due to winter weather affecting liquid cooling machinery.

The Abilene site was unveiled last year at the White House alongside President Donald Trump as part of the $500 billion Stargate AI project involving Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank. The original expansion plans would have increased the facility from 1.2 gigawatts to approximately 2.0 gigawatts.

Market Context

Oracle's cloud infrastructure business has been a growth engine, with total cloud revenue surging 33% to $8 billion in Q2 2026, now representing half of the company's overall revenue. The company has contracted an additional $68 billion in remaining performance obligations related to its cloud infrastructure business, reflecting strong AI-driven demand.

What to Watch

Oracle is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on March 10, with Polymarket showing 77.5% probability the company will beat estimates.

The statement comes as AI infrastructure competition intensifies. UK AI firm Nscale, backed by Nvidia, raised $2 billion at a $14.6 billion valuation on Monday to expand data center capacity for customers including Microsoft and OpenAI.