Company announces “step forward” in its commitment to the UK earlier this year
Oracle has provided updates on its UK investment plans announced earlier this year, adding AI offerings to its Oracle UK Sovereign Cloud.
In March, Big Red announced it would be investing $5 billion in expanding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s (OCI) footprint in the UK and helping the government “deliver on its vision for AI innovation and adoption.”
The company has now provided an update on its progress, including the development of a sovereign cloud offering enabling government and defense organizations to use AI services while meeting regulatory requirements.
The AI services on offer include generative AI and the OCI AI Agent Platform.
The sovereign cloud offering will enable a “common secure technology platform” for cooperation between the US, UK, and NATO.
The updates have coincided with President Donald Trump’s visit to the country.
“Under President Donald J. Trump’s leadership, allied nations are increasing defence investments to strengthen peace and security,” said Safra Catz, CEO, Oracle. “Oracle is proud to deliver advanced cloud and AI infrastructure to support the critical missions of government and defence organisations in the UK and NATO member states throughout Europe.”
UK technology minister Kanishka Narayan said: “Protecting its citizens is the most important job of any government. This investment by Oracle is helping us make sure we can continue to protect our national security in an increasingly uncertain world. The UK and the United States have always stood shoulder to shoulder in facing down shared global threats which threaten our way of life. By using AI, we can ensure our two nations and international allies are working in lockstep to do just that – with truly cutting-edge defences.”
Earlier this month, Oracle revealed that NATO’s Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) would be moving its mission-critical workloads from an on-premise platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)’s sovereign cloud offering.
As per NATO’s announcement in June of this year, French defense and cybersecurity company Thales will assist with integration, whilst Belgian telco Proximus will provide networking solutions.
With Trump in the UK, several US tech companies have made commitments to the country. Microsoft has said it will build a supercomputer as part of a $15bn AI infrastructure push, CoreWeave revealed plans to invest $2bn in expanding its UK AI data center capacity and operations, and Google has opened its data center in Hertfordshire.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/oracle-adds-ai-services-to-uk-sovereign-cloud-as-part-of-5bn-investment-plan/
