The tech industry continues to navigate uncharted territory, with companies facing both unprecedented growth and mounting challenges. As AI innovation accelerates and cloud computing expands, industry giants, such as OpenAI and Oracle, are making critical moves — including the potential Intel Foundry spinout — to secure their futures.

“Oracle and Amazon have a relationship — we want to dig into that,” said John Furrier (pictured, left), executive analyst of theCUBE Research. “OpenAI’s got a new model, good reviews on that, and funding looming on the horizon, raising billions of dollars, and more controversy around Intel.”

In the latest episode of theCUBE Pod, Furrier and Dave Vellante (right), chief analyst, discuss Intel’s manufacturing troubles, the Intel Foundry spinout, OpenAI’s latest funding surge and Oracle’s growing influence in the multicloud space.

Intel Foundry spinout dilemma: Is divesting the solution?

Intel has been facing mounting challenges in its manufacturing and design businesses, and the conversation opens with Vellante discussing a Forbes article by Patrick Moorhead. The article argues that splitting Intel’s Foundry business from its design operations would be a mistake, given the negative value of the Foundry.

“I disagree,” Vellante stated, saying that separating the businesses could be Intel’s best path forward. While the Intel Foundry spinout business is struggling, its design business remains a strong point, especially with the potential of Arm and RISC-V in the market.

The core issue for Intel is volume, Vellante explained. “Wright’s Law basically says that your cost of manufacturing declines for each subsequent node … so your manufacturing volumes, cumulative volumes double and your cost for the next generation go down,” he said.

This puts Intel at a disadvantage, as its manufacturing volumes have been far outpaced by TSMC, which has benefited from the smartphone boom, pushing Intel into a position where it struggles to keep up with both costs and innovation.

Intel needs to shift focus, Furrier added. “Intel has to divest their Foundry business and focus on chip design,” he said. “They’ve got to capitalize on these emerging markets — their booming Arm and RISC-V are key areas.”

OpenAI’s billion-dollar valuation: Fueling AI innovation

OpenAI made waves in the tech world, with reports of the company raising billions in new funding. The implications of OpenAI’s meteoric rise, including the company’s valuation reaching a staggering $150 billion, is significant according to theCUBE Research analysts. Much of this funding has come from the UAE Investment Fund, a move Furrier says underscores the growing importance of AI on a global stage.

“OpenAI is a freight train that keeps going,” he said, noting that the company’s success has sparked a frenzy of investment in AI companies across the board.

Glean Technologies Inc., a company recently featured on theCUBE, raised $260 million at a $4.6 billion valuation, further highlighting the AI boom.

“Glean was an enterprise search company,” Furrier said. “Now they’re an AI company, because they’re perfectly positioned with data.”

Oracle and AWS: Unlikely partners in the multicloud space

One of the most surprising developments discussed in this episode of theCUBE Pod is the new partnership between Oracle and Amazon Web Services Inc. These two companies have had a love-hate relationship for years, but they recently joined forces at Oracle CloudWorld. This is a key moment in the evolution of multicloud strategies, according to Furrier and Vellante.

“They finally buried the hatchet. Oracle is now inserting, embedding Oracle [Cloud] Infrastructure, OCI, inside of Azure, inside of Google, inside of AWS,” Vellante said, adding that this effectively positions Oracle as a multicloud leader.

Oracle’s multicloud strategy sets it apart from other players because, unlike most cloud providers who create ecosystems tied to their platforms, Oracle is taking a more inclusive approach. By creating consistent cloud environments across different platforms, Oracle enables businesses to use its services without being locked into a single cloud vendor. This flexibility appeals to enterprises that want to avoid vendor lock-in while benefiting from a unified cloud environment.

“I would say they are still the only [company] to have identical clouds everywhere,” Vellante added. This approach allows Oracle to offer a seamless multicloud experience, and the partnership with AWS further cements its position in the market.

Oracle’s recent success in the AI space is also notable, particularly its ability to harmonize data across multiple formats — SQL, JSON and Graph — within a single database, Furrier and Vellante pointed out.

“They now have the ability within a single database to harmonize data,” Vellante said. “Oracle showed about 51 agents it is developing. It promised it would have them out by next year. They are all-in on this stack.”

Looking ahead: AI, cloud and the future of tech

Looking ahead to the future of AI and cloud computing, the ability of cloud infrastructure to support the next wave of AI innovation is critical, especially since many companies, such as OpenAI and Glean, continue to push the envelope.

“This all points to the clouds being the power source [of AI],” Furrier said. “At some point, the GPU short will kick in … I think Oracle sits there as an alternative, as does, say, Tesla, as X, as Amazon, as Meta. These GPU owners are going to do it.”

As the future of tech continues to evolve, organizations should keep an eye on agentic systems — AI systems that can self-assemble and adapt in real time — as they will be a key driver of productivity gains in the coming years, Vellante explained.

“What agents will do is they are going to observe humans … and they will reassemble workflows and create them in real time,” he said. “That is a completely radical change to how we do business and can drive … a 10x productivity gain for organizations.”

Watch the full podcast below to find out why these industry pros were mentioned:

Patrick Moorhead, founder, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy
David Floyer, analyst emeritus at theCUBE Research
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS
Larry Ellison, chairman of the board and CTO of Oracle
Tom Dotan, reported at The Wall Street Journal
Hock Tan, president and CEO of Broadcom
Kara Swisher, journalist
Jason Calacanis, internet entrepreneur
Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital, co-host at All-In
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms
Sergey Brin, former president of Alphabet
Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO and chairman of Apple
Charles Fitzgerald, consultative strategist and investor
Mark Albertson, senior writer at SiliconANGLE Media
Ginni Rometty, co-chairman of OneTen, former CEO of IBM
Arvind Krishna, chairman and CEO of IBM
Sarbjeet Johal, founder and CEO of Stackpane
Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce
Christophe Bertrand, principal analyst at theCUBE Research
Rob Strechay, managing director and principal analyst at theCUBE Research
George Gilbert, senior analyst at theCUBE Research
Brian J. Baumann, director of capital markets at NYSE
George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike
Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark
Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator
Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Tim Crawford, CIO strategic advisor of AVOA
Padraig Harrington, professional golfer

Watch the full theCUBE Pod episode below:

Don’t miss out on the latest episodes of “theCUBE Pod.” Join us by subscribing to our RSS feed. You can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And for those who prefer to watch, check out our YouTube playlist. Tune in now, and be part of the ongoing conversation.

Photo: SiliconANGLE