S&P Global Ratings has lowered its long-term issuer credit rating on Oracle to ‘BBB-’ from ‘BBB’ — one notch above speculative grade — while maintaining a stable outlook. The rating agency identified Sam Altman-led OpenAI as a "key credit risk," estimating that OpenAI makes up roughly half of the $638 billion in remaining performance obligation (RPO). S&P warned that if the ChatGPT-maker fails to pay Oracle, it “could be left with massive data center leases.” S&P stated it assigned Oracle a negative outlook in July 2025 due to the pace of its AI infrastructure buildout and the potential financial impact, acknowledging it underestimated the scale of investments required. The agency noted Oracle’s cloud infrastructure business accounted for 27% of revenues in fiscal 2026 and is projected to make up almost 60% of revenues by fiscal 2028, which it views as riskier than its legacy software and database businesses due to substantial upfront investment. S&P added that rising component costs could pressure economics, and that in an industry downturn, Oracle is expected to perform worse than other hyperscalers given its higher reliance on external customers.