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 news Appeal court overturns $1.6bn mainframe software ‘poaching’ ruling against IBM AT&T ‘independently decided” to replace BMC software, the appeals court found. By John Leyden May 03, 2024 3 mins Mainframes Legal news IBM and AWS forge global alliance, streamlining access to AI and hybrid cloud solutions This partnership will allow businesses in 92 countries access to IBM’s software products, including data technologies and AI, directly through the AWS Marketplace. By Gyana Swain May 03, 2024 5 mins Amazon Web Services Hybrid Cloud Artificial Intelligence feature UPS delivers customer wins with generative AI The multinational shipping company enlisted LLMs to automate customer message responses, reducing agent handle time and paving the way for genAI use across the enterprise. By Paula Rooney May 03, 2024 7 mins CIO 100 Generative AI Digital Transformation feature Scrum master certification: Top 13 certs for agile pros A Scrum master certification can prove you have the knowledge and competency to lead agile teams successfully. By Sarah K. White, Sharon Florentine May 03, 2024 16 mins Certifications Agile Development IT Skills 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