In recent times, there has been a lot of buzz around artificial intelligence (AI). And it is no longer just a passing craze but is increasingly being adopted by companies big and small. So much so that AI is now a major driver for traditional services like cloud for tech majors such as Oracle, who are deeply integrating these offerings.
"As more organisations look to take advantage of AI, its also becoming a key driver of our cloud business," said Premalakshmi P.R., vice-president, technology cloud, Oracle India.
Just in the first half of the financial year, from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure standpoint, 30 per cent of Oracle's revenues were driven by AI, she noted.
"There is equal amount of experimentation as well as there are enterprises who are taking this into production, create specific use cases, getting out business outcomes," she said.
Overall, the company says growth has been strong in India, with infrastructure as a service, PaaS (platform as a service) and database services growing more than 50 per cent year-on-year in the first half of the financial year.
Across industries from banking and insurance, to telecom, manufacturing and automotive the momentum has been strong, with companies migrating to cloud and seeking AI services.
Oracle has also seen strong expansion of its cloud infrastructure in India's public sector, with many wins in Central and state government projects.
"If we were to look at what is really driving from our set of portfolio, we have the public cloud offerings, which includes more than 150-plus cloud and AI services," said Premalakshmi.
On the applications side, Oracle has integrated 50 gen AI agents in its fusion cloud SaaS applications, the company said.
For instance, banks are looking at leveraging gen AI to bring better experience to their customers; with multiple products on offer, hyper-personalisation is becoming very critical, she said. Companies are looking at gen AI to disrupt products they are taking to the market.
Shailesh Singla, vice-president, cloud applications at Oracle India, believes there will be deeper integration of AI agents in business, especially in tasks that can take over repetitive, data intensive functions.
"We see a lot of business opportunity here in India with more organisations willing to experiment and drive operational efficiencies. Expect new sectors like NBFCs, professional services, e-commerce driving applications growth in the near future," he said.
Over the past year, the global tech giant has announced billions of dollars in additional investment in AI and cloud across the globe. In June, for instance, it announced plans to invest $1 billion to open a third cloud region in Spain. In Malaysia, it plans to invest $6.5 billion in AI and cloud computing. Oracle launched its Mumbai cloud region in 2019, followed by Hyderabad a year later.
