Oracle plans to expand its cloud region across the Middle East

Oracle’s annual flagship event, CloudWorld Tour returned to the UAE for the second consecutive year to share the company’s latest AI innovations to power UAE’s Digital Economy and its regional plans. The company that just turned 35 years old in the UAE will continue to invest in local infrastructure to bring cloud capabilities that will help the UAE Government entities and private sector.

“The UAE has from an early stage prioritised the adoption of Artificial Intelligence and other latest  digital technologies, and has thus set a target to double the contribution of the digital economy to the  UAE\’s non-oil GDP from 11.7 per cent to over 20 within the next 10 years”, said Nick Redshaw, senior vice president – Technology Cloud, Middle East and Africa, and UAE Country Leader. “Oracle is fully committed to helping the UAE achieve this national objective, and with our cloud regions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, unique AI-focused innovation hubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and availability of our latest integrated cloud solutions, we are moving at pace to accelerate our support to the UAE.

“We have doubled our business in less than three years in the region. The Middle East had one of the biggest growths for Oracle Applications, and the business that we have, especially in the UAE is really high. The cloud adoption we see in the UAE is massive, there is a cloud adoption momentum both in the public and private sector, we already have three data center in the country and work with outstanding clients such as Abu Dhabi Government, Etisalat, du, DP Worl or Emirates Post,” says Leopolodo Boado Lama, Senior Vice President, Business Applications—ECEMEA at Oracle.

New partnerships

Oracle and du, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company), one of the largest telco operators in the UAE signed a partnership to unlock value for sovereign hyperscaler cloud services. 

“The UAE is one of the most innovative countries in the world and our public sector are rapidly embracing the adoption of advanced technologies to deliver a world-class experience for businesses, citizens, residents and tourists.  Cloud is the platform for innovation and provides a rich source of services for digital reinvention.  At du, we are doubling down on digital capabilities in response to the visionary calls for the UAE to transform into the most technologically advanced nation by 2030.  Sovereign cloud capabilities are a key pillar of this transformation.” said Jasim Al Awadi, CICTO (Acting) at du.”

During the event, Oracle also signed a partnership with Etisalat by e&, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, Etisalat selected OCI Dedicated Region as one of its primary cloud platforms. This decision aligns with the company\’s goals to streamline and modernize its operations and business support systems, fostering the growth of its digital services portfolio, with the plan of incorporating NVIDIA clusters into its dedicated Oracle cloud region.

“Our cloud journey started some time ago when it was time to transform our applications to cloud-native applications we saw a gap to enable that transformation, that gap has been a critical infrastructure provider, that was a challenge and we had clear that we wanted to embark our journey and achieve all the benefits of the cloud and that’s why we partnered with Oracle, with the purpose to modernize our applications and in the way we serve our customers,” said Khalid Murshed, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Etisalat UAE. “Cloud data applications provide better scalability and more agile operations, you don’t need a major upgrade every quarter, we believe we have the best benefits of having our applications on the cloud.”