Oracle Plans To Invest Over $8 Billion To Boost Its Cloud Computing And AI In Japan

With Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s state visit to the United States commencing from April 8 – April 14, 2024, various technology conglomerates announced a range of collaborations and investment plans to improve their product and service offerings in Japan.

This includes OpenAI releasing a custom GPT-4 model optimized for the Japanese language, which was faster than its GPT-4 Turbo model at responses in Japanese. Ahead of this, the company also announced that it opened an office in Tokyo, which was also its first office in Asia.

Microsoft, the primary backer of the most popular chatbot, also announced it was going to invest $2.9 billion over the next two years to boost its AI infrastructure and increase its hyperscale cloud computing in the country.

Additionally, Google also revealed that it was investing $1 billion to enhance digital connectivity to Japan with two subsea cables

Now, Oracle, the multinational technology company known for its cloud applications and cloud platform services, has come with an announcement that’s set to enhance its offerings in Japan.

So, what did Oracle say? Let’s explore!
 

What Did Oracle Announce?

 

• As per a news release published on its website, Oracle announced that it was going to invest over $8 billion over the next 10 years to meet the growing demand for cloud computing and AI infrastructure in Japan. 

• The plan is to grow the service capabilities of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), its next-generation cloud platform designed to run applications faster, cheaper and more securely, in the country.

• This will see Oracle customize its offerings to Japan’s unique requirements, which includes expanding its operations teams for Oracle Alloy (its complete cloud infrastructure platform that enables partners to become cloud providers) and OCI Dedicated Region (a complete OCI cloud region assigned to a single organization).

• Oracle also plans to increase the local customer support capacity of its public cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka and bolster its support engineering teams with Japanese personnel.

• As per the release, “This will enable governments and businesses across Japan to continue to move their mission-critical workloads to the Oracle Cloud and embrace sovereign AI solutions. Oracle sovereign cloud and AI services can be delivered securely within a country’s borders or an organization’s premises with a range of operational controls.”

• The release further mentions, “Oracle is the only hyperscaler capable of delivering AI and a full suite of 100+ cloud services locally, anywhere.”

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI) distributed cloud lineup supports dedicated clouds (customers running its services in their own data centers and partners can customize and resell cloud services), hybrid clouds (key cloud services delivered on-premises by OCI), public clouds and multiclouds.

 

What Did Oracle Say?

 

• Toshimitsu Misawa, member of the board, Corporate Executive Officer and President, Oracle Corporation Japan, said, “We are dedicated to meeting our customers and partners where they are in their cloud journey.”

• [Contd.] “By growing our cloud footprint and providing a team to support sovereign operations in Japan, we are giving our customers and partners the opportunity to innovate with AI and other cloud services while supporting their regulatory and sovereignty requirements.”

Do you think this move by Oracle will help it compete against its rivals, considering Google’s and Microsoft’s investments in the region?

Let us know in the comments below!