Smarter Contracts Win: Oracle Turns Compute into Currency

The Boardroom Daily Brief

Oracle just reframed cloud as capacity you reserve, not software you rent. We break down how its AI-compute surge changes boardroom math, then hit the other headlines that matter: Apple’s iPhone 17 lineup with the ultra-thin iPhone Air and eSIM-only provisioning, Microsoft’s multi-model Copilot strategy that ends AI monogamy, policymakers exploring federal AI sandboxes, and fresh Labor Department revisions that reset demand forecasts. The deep dive turns “compute as currency” into a practical playbook: how to structure capacity reservations, keep compute near your data, write reversibility into contracts, set spend guardrails that finance will love, and close the talent gap with the right hires. We close with a two-week plan to get a capacity quote, a proximity design, and a reversibility clause in writing.