India offers a significant market opportunity for Oracle in the APAC region: Leo Leung

With more companies, particularly those in regulated sectors, looking to shift their operations to the cloud, American technology company Oracle sees a lot of opportunities for local providers globally including in India to play a key role in driving critical infrastructure. At Oracle’s flagship event Oracle CloudWorld 2024, Leo Leung, Group Vice President, Oracle Tech and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), told TechCircle that India offers a significant market opportunity in the APAC region. He also discussed the company’s recent multi-cloud partnerships and advancements in cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) innovations. Edited excerpts:

How is Oracle collaborating with governments worldwide, especially in India?

Oracle is partnering with governments globally, including in India, to navigate the increasing complexity of privacy regulations. Our strategy focuses on compliance, beginning with a distributed cloud approach across 41 managed regions. We’ve developed commercial zones for private enterprises and secure areas for government use. In the US, UK, and Australia, we operate separate data centres to meet various governmental needs. In the European Union (EU), we maintain distinct regions for member states, reinforcing EU ownership and addressing US access concerns through the EU Sovereign Cloud. We also plan to introduce our unique cloud infrastructure platform called Alloy in India which will facilitate the deployment of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in customer or partner facilities. In Asia, partners like Team IM in New Zealand and AIS in Thailand are adopting these solutions to align with local security requirements. Indian government agencies are utilising OCI in our public cloud regions, which comply with Indian regulations and have received Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) attestation.

What market opportunities does India offer, and how does it fit into the global strategic framework?

India represents a substantial market opportunity, particularly as many workloads remain on-premises and require customers to manage independently. With 60-70% of global workloads hosted on-premises, transitioning to platforms like Microsoft, Google, or Amazon Web Services (AWS) can be particularly challenging for Oracle databases. Through multi-cloud partnerships, we can assist customers in migrating critical applications from their data centres to OCI. For instance, our partnership with Microsoft led to the successful migration of Conduit, which manages tolling systems, from an entirely on-premises setup. Once applications are cloud-based, clients can harness AI, analytics, and new applications, and services that are limited on-premises. We are also collaborating with the Ministry of Education through our public cloud offerings.

Oracle, as well as your peers like Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud, are all investing in new regions and data centres in India. In such a scenario how do you want to attain a competitive advantage?

Our partners, including Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud, are heavily investing to establish new regions and data centres in India. Oracle is also collaborating with these companies and enhancing OCI capacity alongside them. We currently have two operational regions in India and intend to continue investing in them. Collaborating with providers like Microsoft and Google Cloud is central to our strategy, and potential future partnerships with AWS are in consideration. Given that many Indian customers are committed to these providers, there will likely be inquiries about Oracle’s regional plans. Our focus is on integrating OCI within their framework, as we've successfully done with Microsoft, and we are beginning discussions with Google. Customer expectations regarding AWS and Microsoft integrating OCI into their existing regions reflect our ongoing conversations.

How are client discussions in the SMB segment shaping up in the current business landscape?

For small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) aiming to enhance efficiency with AI, it’s crucial to focus on practical applications rather than technical complexities. We recommend utilising solutions like NetSuite, tailored for SMBs to manage back-office functions. By integrating AI into these applications, clients without dedicated tech teams can easily request features like financial summaries or customer service information without grappling with intricate infrastructure requirements. For AI-centric companies and tech firms, we provide appealing capabilities for both startups and enterprises. Our Oracle Database 23ai services offer robust data management and privacy features. For those invested in AI, our advanced infrastructure, co-developed with Nvidia, supports everything from large-scale model development to smaller applications. Our extensive suite of capabilities is designed for companies seeking to integrate AI into their offerings.

Which sectors and markets present the biggest opportunities?

We have around 100 distinct Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that incorporate varying levels of our AI engine, including back-office solutions like Fusion and NetSuite, which facilitate essential business functions such as recruitment and financial management. Oracle is leveraging AI to enhance patient care in healthcare and upgrade banking operations in financial services, including risk management. Our strategy focuses on providing the infrastructure needed for skilled customers and services for application developers, with interactions occurring through our application layer. I agree with Larry Ellison on the increasing prevalence of multi-cloud strategies, as most customers utilise at least two cloud services, leading to management challenges. Our objective is to simplify this process, enabling customers to adopt their strategies without complex integrations. The upcoming phase of cloud growth will likely emphasize multi-cloud approaches. With over half of the market still outside cloud services, there is considerable potential for expansion, and I am particularly keen on developments in Asia concerning tailored cloud solutions for specific governments or partnerships.

What advancements in AI and cloud technology can we expect in the next 2-3 years?

The next 2-3 years in AI and cloud computing are poised for transformation, with AI expected to see significant fluctuations in development and application. Organisations are making substantial investments to fully understand and utilise AI, leading to next-generation models and innovative use cases. This experimental phase suggests vast growth potential driven by demand. While AI's full potential remains untapped, advancements are imminent. Furthermore, cloud computing plays a crucial role in AI, as data proximity is essential, although data transfer presents security and sovereignty risks, highlighting the interdependence of these fields.