Oracle shares jump as AI push perks up cloud demand

STORY: Oracle shares jumped more than 14% in Tuesday morning trading as a push to embed artificial intelligence into its cloud products boosted quarterly results.

Oracle was a late entrant to the cloud business, but its rapid AI investments have helped it narrow the gap with market leaders Microsoft and Amazon.

Revenue from its cloud products, seen as less expensive than those from Microsoft and Amazon, rose 21% to $5.6 billion in the first quarter.

And its overall revenue of $13.3 billion beat estimates.

Oracle is also partnering with rival cloud service companies to make it simpler for customers to connect their data across vendors.

On Monday, the company announced a tie-up with Amazon Web Services, having signed a similar deal with Alphabet's Google Cloud in June.

And Oracle's cloud infrastructure is powered by Nvidia's hardware, considered the gold standard for AI chips.

Shares have risen more than 32% this year.

If Tuesday's stock gains hold, Oracle would add another $39 billion to its market value.