Larry Ellison founded Oracle in 1977, long before the internet reshaped the world. Since then, it has transformed into a powerhouse in database management and cloud computing and has laid the foundation for global digital infrastructure. As AI ushers in a new era, Oracle stands ready to lead the change.
This week, while announcing The Stargate Project, US President Donald Trump called Ellison the “CEO of Everything”. “Larry Ellison…is an amazing man, an amazing businessperson.”
Trump’s reference makes perfect sense, considering Oracle’s crucial partnership in the $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure in the US. Besides, Ellison came to the rescue of the much talked about TikTok Global, which was on the verge of shutdown in America. Oracle owns a 12.5% stake in the video platform. The US President’s closeness to Ellison pushed him to sign an executive order to delay the ban.
Oracle will be helping the US government build new data centres that will power the country’s AI infrastructure. “We are proud to be working with OpenAI, SoftBank, and MGX on The Stargate Project to secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,” the company said in an X post.
Ever since Trump made the announcement, Oracle shares jumped nearly 13%. This has also positively impacted Ellison’s net worth and reflected investor confidence in Oracle’s future in AI technology.
The construction of data centres has already begun in Texas, and additional sites are being evaluated across the country. Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will collaborate to build and operate the computing system. This partnership extends an established collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA since 2016 and a newer relationship with Oracle.
“The first of them (data centres) are under construction in Texas. Each building is half a million square feet. There are 10 buildings currently being built, but that will expand to 20…other locations,” Ellison said.
Moreover, Oracle will now also work closely with OpenAI, especially as Microsoft is no longer an exclusive cloud partner for the startup. OpenAI will now run its workloads on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), extending the Microsoft Azure AI platform to Oracle’s cloud services.
“Like many others, OpenAI chose OCI because it is the world’s fastest and most cost-effective AI infrastructure,” Oracle chief Safra A Catz said in a recent earnings call.
In 2024, Oracle launched its first zettascale cloud computing clusters accelerated by NVIDIA’s Blackwell platform. OCI is now taking orders for the largest AI supercomputer in the cloud, supporting up to 1,31,072 GPUs.
Surprisingly, Ellison’s close associate Elon Musk’s xAI is not part of The Stargate Project. Notably, xAI ended a $10 billion server deal with Oracle last year, which suggests a possible strain in their relationship.
Curing Diseases with AI
At the White House, Ellison discussed AI’s potential in healthcare and highlighted its ability to enable early cancer detection and the creation of personalised vaccines.
“Using AI, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test, and once we gene sequence that cancer tumour, you can then vaccinate the person [and] design a vaccine for every individual person to vaccinate them against that cancer,” he said.
He added that mRNA vaccines can be made robotically using AI in about 48 hours. “This is the promise of AI and the promise of the future.”
Companies like Kuano and Xaira Therapeutics are already using OCI to accelerate drug discovery by leveraging AI and high-performance computing (HPC). OCI provides scalable cloud solutions for large-scale simulations and AI model training
Will Oracle Buy TikTok?
There have been discussions about Ellison and Musk potentially buying half the stake in TikTok, and Trump has shown openness to the idea. “I’m open to Elon Musk buying TikTok if he wants it. I’m also open to Larry Ellison buying it,” Trump said.
Turning to Ellison, he added, “You’re a rich guy, Larry. Do you want it? I want them to do a 50/50 joint venture deal with America. With us, it’s worth trillions; without us, it’s nothing. What do you think, Larry?” “Sounds like a good deal to me, Mr President,” Ellison replied.
AIM reached out to Oracle to confirm the development, but the company declined to comment. As per recent reports, during discussions about a potential TikTok shutdown, Oracle warned that it could harm its business.
Notably, Oracle is Tiktok’s cloud service provider. In 2022, TikTok launched ‘Project Texas’, a $1.5 billion initiative to address concerns over US user data security by transferring control to Oracle.
The initiative included moving all US user data to Oracle Cloud and establishing a dedicated transparency centre where Oracle employees could review the platform’s source code.
