The investment spread across a period of 10 years will see the public cloud service provider expand its cloud infrastructure footprint in the country to meet the growing demand for AI-based workloads. Credit: Shutterstock / Avigator Fortuner Oracle is planning to invest $8 billion in Japan over the next 10 years in order to expand its cloud infrastructure footprint, which in turn will help the company meet the growing demand for AI-based workloads, the company announced on Wednesday. As part of the investment, the company said it will increase local customer support of its public cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka. Additionally, the public cloud service provider will also expand its local operations teams for Oracle Alloy and its OCI Dedicated Region offerings. The increase in employee strength will enable governments and businesses across Japan to continue to move their mission-critical workloads to the Oracle Cloud and embrace sovereign AI solutions, the company said in a statement. Oracle has been on a cloud footprint expansion spree over the last year as part of its strategy to compete with larger rivals, such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google. Last year in December, the company opened its second Chile region. In September, Oracle launched a second Mexico region. In June, the company launched two new EU Sovereign Cloud regions — Madrid and Frankfurt — to help EU enterprises comply with data regulations. Prior to that in May, Oracle became the first hyperscaler to open a cloud region in Serbia. In 2022, during an earnings call, CEO Safra Catz said the company would invest $2.4 billion quarterly in cloud infrastructure. Rival cloud service providers, such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google, also have a sizeable presence in Japan with each of these providers having cloud regions in Tokyo and Osaka. AWS’ cloud region in Tokyo has four Availability Zones and the Osaka region has three Availability Zones. AWS regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. Related content feature State of IT jobs: Mixed signals, changes ahead Layoffs and salary plateaus in the wake of exuberant pandemic-era IT hiring has the IT talent market in flux. And while employers pay premiums for hard-to-find AI skills, IT pros seek the same for filling in-office openings. By Sarah K. White May 17, 2024 10 mins Salaries Hiring IT Jobs feature Project manager salary: 5 key tips to earn more Project managers need to know what their worth is — and make others know it, as well. Here’s a look at project manager compensation, skills that increase a project manager’s pay scale, and how to negotiate a more competitive project By Josh Fruhlinger May 17, 2024 14 mins Salaries Project Management Careers feature Cyber resilience: A business imperative CIOs must get right With ransomware at an all-time high, companies need to understand that being cyber resilient means going beyond compliance to considering all aspects of a business, from operational continuity to software supply chain security. By Andrada Fiscutean May 16, 2024 9 mins Regulation Incident Response Data and Information Security feature Shine a Spotlight on Your Team’s IT Excellence with CIO Awards Canada By Allice Shandler May 16, 2024 4 mins Events IT Leadership PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe