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 opinion Where’s the ROAI? The Return on Investment for AI is in the use cases By Chris Selland May 08, 2024 4 mins ROI and Metrics Artificial Intelligence opinion Innovative data integration in 2024: Pioneering the future of data integration This article discusses the latest advancements in the data integration industry and how organisations can successfully integrate these technologies into their existing data strategy. By Yash Mehta May 08, 2024 8 mins Data Integration news Are You the Type of Player Who Makes IT Happen? By Elizabeth Cutler May 08, 2024 1 min Events Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership brandpost Sponsored by Adobe 5 use cases for how Generative AI can supercharge document productivity across the enterprise Take a closer look at real-world examples of how we are using GenAI to turn document data into peak productivity. By Maro Eremyan May 08, 2024 6 mins Generative AI 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