Oracle secured a massive contract with the US Department of War worth up to $6.99 billion. The base deal covers $3.31 billion over five years, with an option to extend it another five years, nearly doubling its value.
This is a single-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. It consolidates scattered Oracle software licenses across every military branch, the Coast Guard, and the intelligence community into one streamlined framework.
Officials call this the department’s first direct, department-wide contract for on-premises Oracle software. The Pentagon expects this consolidation to save taxpayers at least $441 million over the contract’s life.
Kirsten Davies, the Department of War CIO, explained, “By fundamentally improving how we procure on-premises Oracle capabilities, we are driving at least $441 million in taxpayer savings while rapidly and effectively serving our warfighters.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump expanded a pledge involving governors and electricity companies aimed at shielding U.S. consumers from rising utility bills caused by booming data center electricity demand.
Nearly 200 stakeholders, including utilities, data center developers, and governors, joined the pledge. It covers 80% of all power delivered to U.S. homes and businesses, aiming to prevent utility bills from rising 15% to 40% by 2030.
Data center opposition has become bipartisan. Environmental concerns and community costs have led some states to push back. New York banned large server warehouse construction for a year, while Florida blocked utilities from passing data center energy costs to residential and small-business customers.
Major tech players like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI, and Amazon committed to the Trump administration’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.” The White House worries about PJM Interconnection’s ability to keep electricity affordable across its 13-state grid.
On Capitol Hill, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bipartisan bill requiring data centers to cover grid upgrade costs, shifting financial responsibility away from consumers.
In the AI hardware world, Etched announced $300 million in new funding at a $10.3 billion valuation. The startup builds frontier inference clusters to speed up AI inference while lowering costs and expanding capacity.
Etched’s hardware supports models of any size and shape. Innovations like Low Voltage Inference (LVI) and Cluster Scale Memory (CSM) distinguish their approach. The company has raised over $1 billion from investors including Sequoia, a16z, SK Hynix, and Peter Thiel.
CEO Gavin Uberti said, “Now is the time to be aggressive. Our chips work, people want them, and it’s time to ship.” Co-founder Rob Wachen added, “The infrastructure required to serve frontier AI sustainably and economically was never going to come from incremental improvements to existing hardware.”
Trump also reiterated that Saudi Arabia’s nuclear pact hinges on normalizing relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, linking geopolitics with energy and security agendas.
Finally, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is set to announce updates related to Section 122 tariffs, signaling ongoing trade policy shifts amid these technological and geopolitical moves.
Based on
- Oracle wins Pentagon software deal worth up to $7bn — thenextweb.com
- WATCH: Trump expands pledge aimed at shielding consumers from energy cost hikes due to data centers | PBS News — pbs.org
- Etched raises $300M at a $10.3B Valuation to Scale Production of Frontier Scale Inference Hardware | Markets Insider — markets.businessinsider.com
- Trump: Saudi nuclear pact needs Israel relations normalized — ctvnews.ca
- White House: U.S. Trade Rep. Greer to hold announcement on Section 122 tariffs — cnbc.com
