Remember when people said data was the new oil? Well, they might have been off by a letter. According to BNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski, AI compute is the real black gold these days, and two companies are poised to profit big time: Microsoft and Oracle.
Slowinski's latest note was sparked by SpaceX's S-1 filing, which dropped a bombshell: AI company Anthropic has committed roughly $1.25 billion per month — that's about $15 billion annually — for access to the Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data center campuses. Those are the massive facilities built by xAI, Elon Musk's AI venture, and the numbers are eye-popping.
The key takeaway? AI compute supply is still tight. Really tight. That means companies like Microsoft and Oracle, which lease out high-end GPU capacity, can charge premium prices. And as contracts come up for renewal, they'll have even more leverage. Slowinski sees this as a strong near-term signal for AI infrastructure providers.
But here's where it gets really interesting. BNP Paribas estimates that Anthropic might only be leasing 600–700 megawatts of capacity despite that $15 billion annual commitment. Do the math, and you get annual revenue per gigawatt of roughly $15 billion to $24 billion. That's way above what BNP Paribas had previously expected, and it even tops Oracle's own $10-billion-per-gigawatt framework. In other words, the revenue potential from AI compute could be much larger than anyone thought.
So what does this mean for Microsoft and Oracle? Slowinski is bullish on both. He has a $555 price target on Microsoft, implying a 32% upside from its May 20 close of $421.10. For Oracle, he sees $208, an 11% gain from $188.20. He notes that hyperscalers and AI companies are still scrambling for scarce compute capacity, which bodes well for these providers.
As of Thursday's trading, Microsoft shares were down 0.59% at $418.58, while Oracle shares were up 1.96% at $191.84. The market may be taking a breather, but the long-term story here is clear: AI compute is the new oil, and Microsoft and Oracle are sitting on a gusher.
