A natural fit for AI and ‘alt cloud’
Much of Oracle’s recent growth is driven by its growing reputation as a leader in AI infrastructure. With organizations rushing to adopt AI, there’s a massive demand for underlying cloud platforms that can handle complex AI training and inferencing workloads. These workloads are notoriously expensive and computationally intensive, creating significant market opportunities for cloud providers that can strike a balance between high performance and cost-effectiveness.
Oracle has seized this opportunity by designing its infrastructure specifically for the needs of AI use cases, such as training large language models and performing real-time inferencing. Analysts now recognize OCI as the de facto standard for many of these AI workloads, thanks to its ability to deliver performance at a lower price point than its competitors. Even as the market shifts from AI training to AI inferencing—a far larger market, according to Ellison—Oracle is well-positioned to retain its leadership in this space.
Beyond AI, Oracle has been embraced by a growing segment of enterprises looking for alternatives to the hyperscalers. This trend, often referred to as the “alt cloud” movement, spans a wide array of options, including sovereign clouds, GPU-focused clouds, managed services providers, colocation providers, and private clouds. These players differentiate themselves with offerings that are more customized, affordable, and better aligned with enterprise needs, not just for AI-related workloads, but for traditional business applications as well. Oracle Cloud fits neatly into this category and has gained traction as companies prioritize flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and performance over sheer scale.
