What is Oracle thinking? This weekend, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made some sideways comments to reporters in Taiwan about the firm's $100 billion investment option in OpenAI. The tenuous exchange suggested some frustration between the chipmaker and the AI company. At least one report suggested Huang had a bone to pick with the company's business model. Those frustrations, at least per reports, seemed to go both ways; OpenAI reportedly had their own problems with the speed of Nvidia's chips. Yesterday, Oracle unnecessarily involved itself in the exchange, posting that the status of the tie-up between the firms has "zero impact on our financial relationship with OpenAI" and it remained "highly confident in OpenAI's ability to raise funds and meet its commitments." Nvidia's Huang said today that, "There's no drama," and stressed that the company would be interested in investing in the AI giant's IPO. But Oracle's interjection simply found the real drama: the worries around OpenAI and the ecosystem of companies around it. Oracle has put itself out there financially. For months, bond investors have been repricing credit default swaps (CDS) in Oracle, essentially betting on a chance it might run into liquidity problems. Those worries are understandable when a company is spending billions on data centers for a still-unprofitable client that has committed to spend more than it has ever made on your services. And by involving themselves in the exchange of words in the press, Oracle made themselves the main character, drawing more attention to their troubles. Among them are the multi-billion dollar chasm it needs to cross — which it plans to do by raising $50 billion this year — in completing these hefty data center projects and returning to cash flow positivity in 2030 (or wherever the moving goalpost is). There are also supposed issues in procuring financing, which have stirred up skepticism in tech land. Who's going to pay for data centers for which the primary client is a company that has demonstrated an ability to raise gobs of money, but also promptly set it on fire in pursuit of... ads in an AI model? Sure, it could be read for getting ahead of the story, but if so, it's a bit late. Since November, stocks attached to the OpenAI ecosystem (think: Nvidia, Softbank, Oracle, AMD, Microsoft, and CoreWeave) have declined. The Google ecosystem (Alphabet, Broadcom, Celestia, Lumentum, and TTM Technologies), on the other hand, has soldiered upwards. So what benefit is there for Oracle to set off fireworks, flail around, and stress that their data center ambitions are "investment grade" or "proceeding as expected?" What benefit is there to trying to assure investors at this time, making yourself known as "on the team?" Unclear. All that's clear from this is that there's real, palpable worry in the air. AI 업계 내부의 미묘한 긴장감 (Sorry, I summarized it in Korean with the help of AI.) 엔비디아 CEO 젠슨 황이 오픈AI에 대한 투자 이야기를 하며 살짝 불편한 뉘앙스를 드러냈고, 보도에 따르면 엔비디아와 오픈AI가 서로의 사업 방식에 불만을 갖고 있다는 신호가 포착됐다. 이때 오라클이 갑자기 나서서 “엔비디아와 오픈AI 관계가 어떻게 되든, 우리와 오픈AI의 관계에는 전혀 문제 없다”고 공개 발언을 했다. 문제는 이 말이 시장 안심용으로 보이기보다, 오히려 불안을 키웠다는 점이다. 오라클은 아직 돈을 제대로 벌지 못하는 오픈AI를 위해 수십억 달러 규모의 데이터센터를 먼저 지어주고 있는 상황이다. 그래서 채권 시장에서는 “오라클, 혹시 현금 흐름 괜찮은 거야?”라는 걱정이 계속 나오고 있다. 오라클은 올해만 약 500억 달러를 조달해 이 투자를 이어가겠다는 계획이지만, 과연 누가 이 돈을 기꺼이 대줄지에 대해 시장은 의심하고 있다. 실제로 최근 몇 달 동안 엔비디아·오라클·마이크로소프트 등 오픈AI와 엮인 기업들의 주가는 부진한 반면, 구글 쪽 AI 생태계 기업들은 상대적으로 잘 버티고 있다. 이번 일은 AI가 대세인 건 맞지만, 오픈AI를 중심으로 한 구조가 너무 돈을 많이 태우고 있는 건 아닌지, 시장이 진짜로 걱정하기 시작했다는 신호다.