Oracle Outlines Vision for AI and Cloud-Driven Future

Oracle CTO Larry Ellison took the stage at CloudWorld 2023 to articulate Oracle’s bold vision for how AI and cloud will fundamentally reshape technology and business. Ellison explained how generative AI changes everything and how Oracle Cloud’s unique architecture makes it the ideal platform for innovating with this transformative technology.

The Dawning of the Age of Generative AI

Ellison kicked off by reflecting on the astonishing emergence of large language models like ChatGPT in the past year. He noted how infrequent it is for any new technology to capture worldwide attention and spark heated debate among the public, as generative AI has.

While acknowledging valid concerns around risks, Ellison stressed AI’s immense potential to drive progress and make lives tangibly better. He likened it to past innovations like electricity that brought great prosperity yet also potential for misuse absent judicious governance.

Ellison emphatically stated, “Is generative AI the most important new computer technology ever? Probably.” He emphasized Oracle is committed to developing AI responsibly, starting with foundational models that encapsulate human knowledge and then specializing them for beneficial tasks with tight controls. Ellison conveyed conviction that AI marks a new computing epoch, but its positive impact relies on wise implementation.

Oracle Cloud: Purpose-Built for Next-Gen AI

A key theme Ellison hammered throughout was how Oracle Cloud’s fundamentally new architecture provides unique advantages for building and deploying enterprise AI applications. He explained Oracle’s foundational infrastructure breakthrough - a blazing-fast remote direct memory access (RDMA) network, up to 20 times faster than standard networks, that tightly interconnects bare metal servers.

By linking GPUs over RDMA, Oracle Cloud can train complex AI models at up to twice the speed of other clouds, often at less than half the cost. Ellison emphasized this order-of-magnitude performance leap is why AI leaders like NVIDIA, Cohere, and Anthropic all use Oracle Cloud to train their latest generative models cost-efficiently at a massive scale.

Ellison also announced expansive partnerships where Oracle Cloud will be directly embedded in customer data centers and Microsoft Azure regions for a low-latency hybrid cloud. He framed seamless cloud interoperability as imperative, given that most companies use multi-cloud architectures. Ellison presented Oracle Cloud as the connective tissue binding environments together.

Reimagining App Development With Low-Code

Ellison delved into how Oracle’s APEX low-code development platform is fundamentally transforming application creation. He stressed that developers will no longer hand-code most new enterprise applications going forward but instead generate them in APEX.

This empowers faster delivery of more secure and resilient applications. Ellison highlighted how generated apps are "bug-free" since they contain no human-written code with inherent vulnerabilities. He emphasized how low code liberates developers to focus their talents on higher-value creative work rather than repetitive coding tasks.

Ellison predicted over 90% of new cloud apps will be generated without coding within five years, unleashing productivity as developer time gets reallocated from rote programming to more ambitious innovations.

New Wave of Cloud Database Innovation

Complementing generative AI, Ellison showcased database breakthroughs like enhancements to Oracle’s Autonomous Database, which requires zero human administration for greater cost-efficiency, performance, and security.

He also revealed an innovative “object-relational database,” converging the flexibility of document databases with the power and scalability of Oracle’s enterprise relational databases. 

Additionally, he introduced the Oracle Vector Database for storage and analysis of the vast data volumes required to train generative models.

By quickly loading supplementary training data like healthcare records, Ellison explained, customers can easily customize generative models for specific domains. He presented Oracle’s new database offerings as uniquely equipped to fuel AI-driven transformation.

Harnessing Data for Human Impact

A major focal point was Oracle’s new cloud data and analytics platform optimized for generative AI. Ellison announced they are developing a national-scale public health data asset consolidating medical, genomics, and imaging data onto a unified platform.

He explained that applied to generative models. This unprecedented data corpus will yield more personalized, effective healthcare and improved patient outcomes. Ellison emphasized that enhancing human life by leveraging Oracle’s data strength feels deeply meaningful. He commented that nothing Oracle works on holds more promise for profound societal impact.

Advancing Key Industries With AI and Automation

Looking across sectors, Ellison highlighted numerous moonshot initiatives showcasing applied generative AI and cloud. One is totally reinventing agriculture through hyperefficient robotic indoor farms adjacent to cities, dramatically slashing waste and emissions.

Another is transforming emergency response with an unbreakable mesh network connecting ambulances, police vehicles, and fire crews with centralized command centers. Ellison revealed Oracle even created a concept of a self-driving police patrol car with voice control and constant video streaming to aid officers.

He also mentioned a partnership with NIH to overhaul clinical trials by combining real-world data and AI to deliver insights at an unprecedented scale while protecting privacy. Ellison cited using AI and IoT to optimize supply chains for radically faster fulfillment and delivery.

Ellison emphasized how AI and automation will bring new levels of productivity, sustainability, reliability, insight, and progress across healthcare, agriculture, transportation, public safety, drug discovery, supply chain, and every facet of business.

Architecting an Automated, Connected Future

Ellison closed by reiterating cloud and AI will usher in a new era of exponentially more connected, insight-driven, autonomous systems spanning every industry. However, he emphasized that successfully guiding this transformation requires courage to accept change plus vision to see possibilities.

He stressed that Oracle engineers top-to-bottom technology stacks for automation, with cloud infrastructure optimized for AI and machine learning at the base. Ellison made clear Oracle intends to lead this next technological wave - providing the most powerful cloud platform and AI tools to customers while engineering responsible innovation that makes lives and businesses better.

Oracle CloudWorld vividly illustrated the company’s ambition to fundamentally reimagine what organizations can achieve by becoming AI-driven on a world-class cloud foundation. The event showcased Oracle’s focal role in advancing customers’ digital transformation into intelligent, integrated, and automated enterprises.