AI isn’t just transforming how we live, work and play, it’s also overhauling the cloud and data center market. It’s not just about the big three anymore – we’re entering the era of the alternative hyperscaler.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft still dominate the cloud landscape, but according to data from Synergy Research Group, it was actually Oracle and neocloud players that had the biggest growth story in 2025.
Synergy’s John Dinsdale noted that “the huge gulf in scale between the big three and the rest means that no matter how fast the up-and-coming cloud providers grow, in the short term they cannot much impact the market shares of the big three.”
But market share isn’t the only metric that matters.
Oracle’s order backlog hit more than half a trillion dollars in Q3. Meanwhile, neocloud players like CoreWeave, NTT, Lambda, Crusoe and Vultr have been bagging absolutely massive infrastructure contracts.
Vultr notably inked a $1 billion deal to deploy an AMD-based supercluster.
So we sat down with Vultr’s CMO Kevin Cochrane and Futuriom founder and chief analyst Scott Raynovich to talk what's coming down the pipe in 2026.
Catch the video at top, listen to the audio edition below on the go or watch this and future episodes on YouTube!
This podcast is written and hosted by Diana Goovaerts. It is edited by Diana Goovaerts and Matt Rickman. Liz Coyne is our executive producer. Special thanks to our guests Kevin Cochrane and Scott Raynovich.
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
- Neocloud Lambda's vision of the future: 'One GPU, one person'
- AMD zeros in on data center growth with 6 GW OpenAI deal
- The two things AI infrastructure providers hate the most
- CPUs are the unsung heroes of AI
- Neocloud newbie Nebius isn’t worried about AI bubble bursting
- The Five Nine: Crypto companies mine for AI gold
- Vultr’s AMD deal boosts accelerator diversity in the data center
- Neoclouds ride a runaway revenue growth train to 2030
- Does Rumble stand a chance in the hypercompetitive cloud market?
Check out our full archive of episodes of The Five Nine right here.