Oracle Strengthens Saudi Arabia's AI Economy with Opening of Second Public Cloud Region

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Aug 06, 2024, 08:00 ET

New public cloud region in Riyadh is Oracle's second cloud region in Saudi Arabia and part of Oracle's US $1.5 billion investment to boost the country's cloud capacity in line with Saudi Vision 2030

Saudi organizations can take advantage of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's high performance and built-in security, powerful data, distributed cloud, and disaster recovery capabilities to help accelerate AI innovation and enhance business resilience

Oracle's footprint expands to eight cloud regions in the Middle East and North Africa – one of the fastest expansions by any hyperscaler in the region

AUSTIN, Texas and RIYADH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Aug. 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- To meet the rapidly growing demand for its AI and cloud services, Oracle today announced the opening of its second public cloud region in Saudi Arabia. The new Riyadh cloud region will help public and private sector organizations migrate all types of workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), giving them access to a wide range of cloud services to modernize their applications and innovate with data, analytics, and AI. Center3 is the host partner for the new Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region.

Part of Oracle's distributed cloud strategy and Oracle's US $1.5 billion investment to expand cloud infrastructure capabilities in the Kingdom, the new region will help boost the Kingdom's AI economy, which is expected to reach $135.2 billion by 2030. The Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region joins the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region and the planned Oracle Cloud Region in NEOM to extend Oracle's footprint in Saudi Arabia. Oracle is the only hyperscaler capable of delivering AI and a full suite of 100+ cloud services across dedicated, public, and hybrid cloud environments, anywhere in the world. This includes Oracle Autonomous Database, HeatWave MySQL Database Service, Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, OCI Generative AI service, OCI AI Infrastructure, and OCI Supercluster.

"The opening of Oracle's new cloud region in Riyadh reflects the Kingdom's continuous efforts in boosting the digital economy based on modern technologies and innovation," said His Excellency Eng. Haytham Alohali, vice minister, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. "This step will significantly enable international and local companies to achieve innovation and promote the adoption of AI and cloud computing technologies in various sectors, which enhances Saudi Arabia's competitiveness at the regional and international level."

"With the rapid expansion of our cloud footprint in Saudi Arabia, Oracle is committed to helping the country achieve its goal of developing one of the strongest digital economies in the world," said Richard Smith, executive vice president and general manager, EMEA Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle. "As part of our wider investment in cloud capabilities in Saudi Arabia, the Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region will help accelerate adoption of cloud and AI technologies to boost innovation across all sectors of the Saudi economy, while helping organizations addressing local data hosting requirements."

OCI Provides Customers and Partners with a Resilient and Scalable Cloud Foundation

With the Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region adding to the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region, customers and partners can gain low-latency access to cloud services to help them derive better value from their data. Customers can also leverage high availability and backup and disaster recovery capabilities across the two regions in Saudi Arabia to enhance business continuity and help address local regulations and requirements for local data hosting. In addition, OCI's sovereign AI capabilities provide customers with increased control over where they locate their data and computing infrastructure and how they manage it. As a result, customers can make use of AI capabilities designed with the requirements of digital sovereignty frameworks in mind.

OCI's unique cloud architecture enables Oracle to launch dedicated cloud regions with hyperscale cloud services inside customer data centers, and deploy more public cloud regions faster by starting with an optimal footprint and scaling as needed. This approach helps meet the needs of all countries and markets without compromising cloud capabilities, while also providing the consistent performance, SLAs, and global pricing for which OCI has become known.

Partners and Analysts Welcome the New Public Cloud Region

"We are thrilled to collaborate with Oracle as they expand their cloud infrastructure in Saudi Arabia with the new Riyadh cloud region," said Fahad Alhajeri, chief executive officer, center3. "This strategic initiative delivers on our shared vision of fostering technological innovation and advancing the digital economy of the Kingdom. Oracle's cloud regions in Saudi Arabia will play an important role in enhancing data sovereignty, driving digital transformation, and empowering businesses across the country to achieve greater agility and growth."

"Oracle's continued expansion of its cloud footprint in Saudi Arabia is vital as companies increasingly leverage AI and GenAI capabilities," said Jyoti Lalchandani, regional managing director, Middle East, Türkiye, Africa & India, IDC. "Local cloud infrastructure helps organizations ensure faster data processing, enhanced security, and their compliance with national regulations, helping them innovate more efficiently and effectively. This strategic move not only supports the Kingdom's vision to leverage artificial intelligence to drive digital transformation, but also empowers companies to harness the full potential of AI, driving competitive advantage and creating local value and growth in the Kingdom."

About Oracle Distributed Cloud

Oracle's distributed cloud delivers the benefits of cloud with greater control and flexibility. Oracle's distributed cloud lineup includes:

Public cloud: Hyperscale public cloud regions serve any size of organization, including those requiring strict EU sovereignty controls. See the full list of regions here.
Dedicated cloud: Customers can run all OCI cloud services in their own data centers with OCI Dedicated Region, while partners can resell OCI cloud services and customize the experience using Oracle Alloy. Oracle also operates separate U.S., UK, and Australian Government Clouds, and Isolated Cloud Regions for U.S. national security purposes. Each of these products provide a full cloud and AI stack that customers can deploy as a Sovereign Cloud.
Hybrid cloud: OCI delivers key cloud services on-premises via Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer and Compute Cloud@Customer and is already managing deployments in over 60 countries.
Multicloud: Options including Oracle Database@Azure, HeatWave MySQL on AWS and Microsoft Azure, Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud allow customers to combine key capabilities from across clouds.

Additional Resources

Learn more about the Oracle Cloud Regions
Learn more about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

About Oracle
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SOURCE Oracle