Reflections from Oracle AI World 2025
In this blog
Architecture still matters
I just got back from my first Oracle AI World, and for someone who doesn't exactly love Las Vegas, it was worth the trip. Between the noise of the Strip and the buzz around AI, what stood out to me most wasn't a flashy demo — it was a clear message about architecture.
Oracle's story right now is rooted in two ideas that cut through the hype:
A belief that bare metal still matters
A commitment to multi-cloud reality
Those two themes shaped most of what I heard, and they say a lot about how Oracle sees the future of enterprise computing.
1. The bare metal foundation
One thing that differentiates Oracle is how unapologetically it leans into the physical side of cloud.
While many providers build layers of abstraction to make infrastructure invisible, Oracle takes the opposite view — the hardware still matters.
OCI's bare metal architecture gives customers direct access to compute without a noisy neighbor problem or virtualized unpredictability. It's about consistency, isolation, and control — the kind of performance you can design around instead of just hoping for.
That design choice shows up everywhere: in how databases run, in AI workloads that need deterministic performance, and in how Oracle thinks about data sovereignty and security.
It's not about nostalgia for on-prem days. It's about the simple truth that predictable outcomes start with predictable infrastructure.
2. Multicloud without the drama
The other major theme was Oracle's pragmatic approach to multicloud.
They've stopped treating other clouds as competitors and started treating them as partners. The "Oracle Database@Azure" story has now expanded to "Oracle@Anywhere" — meaning OCI services integrated directly into Azure, AWS and GCP.
That's not a surrender; it's a recognition of how customers actually operate. Most large organizations are already in multiple clouds. Oracle's strategy is to make its technology available wherever it's needed, with performance parity and low-latency interconnects that ensure a consistent experience.
So when customers select "Oracle@CSP" (where CSP = "AWS", "GCP" or "Azure"), they're getting the Oracle-branded Exadata platform inside the CSPs Data Center. Managed by Oracle.
It's a practical evolution — one that values coexistence over consolidation.
3. What it means for us
For those of us working in and around the Oracle ecosystem, these themes align well with what we're hearing from our customers.
They want choice, but they also want simplicity. They want performance, but without being locked in. And they're looking for partners who understand that architecture isn't just a buzzword — it's the difference between "it works" and "it scales."
Oracle's direction right now is technical, deliberate, and refreshingly grounded. It's not trying to reinvent the definition of cloud — just build it better from the ground up.
Vegas might not be my kind of town, but I left with a clear takeaway:
In a world full of abstractions, architecture still matters.