Oracle unveils OCI Dedicated Region25 for AI cloud services on-site
Oracle has introduced Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Dedicated Region25, providing customers the ability to deploy OCI's suite of AI and cloud services directly in their own data centres with a reduced physical footprint.
According to the company, OCI Dedicated Region25 allows full-stack OCI deployment in as few as three racks, making it suitable for organisations with limited space or specific regulatory requirements. The deployment process is designed to be completed within weeks, supporting firms to gain scalability and operational flexibility traditionally associated with public cloud infrastructure.
Flexibility and sovereignty
Scott Twaddle, Senior Vice President, Product and Industries, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, highlighted the growing need for flexible AI and cloud service deployments, especially amid increasing sovereign AI demands. Twaddle stated,
"Organisations want the freedom to run AI and cloud services where they deliver the most value, a need that's only growing as sovereign AI considerations drive stricter requirements around data location and control. With OCI Dedicated Region25, we're bringing the full power of Oracle Cloud to virtually any data center. This new deployment option enables unmatched flexibility, operational simplicity, and enterprise-grade sovereignty-redefining what a dedicated cloud can be and helping ensure customers are ready for the future."
The OCI Dedicated Region25 offers more than 200 AI and cloud services, aiming to support both public and private sector entities in boosting agility and accelerating the delivery of new services. Oracle's solution is intended to address the needs of organisations that require on-premises deployment due to space restrictions, urgency, or regulatory reasons.
Customer perspectives
Kazushi Koga, Corporate Executive Officer, SEVP and Head of Platform at Fujitsu, addressed the value of OCI Dedicated Region25 for the company's strategy. Koga said,
"As we continue to leverage the cloud to help deliver the best possible customer experience, gaining flexibility in how and where we deploy services has become a key element of our cloud strategy. With OCI Dedicated Region25 delivering the full range of OCI services via a small physical footprint inside our own data centres, we will be able to deploy apps and services quickly and easily to our customers while benefiting from the flexibility to expand our deployment without downtime or re-architecting. As a result, OCI Dedicated Region25 will enable us to run AI and cloud services anywhere they deliver the most value for our business."
Evolution of dedicated regions
Oracle noted that since the initial introduction of OCI Dedicated Region in 2020, the product has progressed from a large, hyperscale model to a much more adaptable option. To date, Oracle states there are over 60 OCI Dedicated Regions and Oracle Alloy regions either live or planned globally, offering a spectrum of deployment models to match different customer requirements.
Many organisations have previously experienced challenges in achieving full cloud transformation due to the limitations of traditional dedicated cloud regions. With OCI Dedicated Region25, Oracle seeks to remove these barriers by providing advanced modular scalability that allows expansion from a starting point of just three racks, using network expansion racks to facilitate seamless growth with minimal disruption.
Infrastructure and security features
The infrastructure is based on a hyperconverged and homogeneous design, using Oracle's standardised high-density compute and storage racks. According to Oracle, this approach allows customers to optimise space and power usage while achieving high reliability, improved recovery times, and reduced operational complexity.
Security also features prominently, with the company detailing multi-layered physical and virtual security protections, including biometric-locked racks and encrypted, software-defined network fabrics. These measures are designed to help customers meet stringent compliance, privacy, and sovereignty requirements, particularly important for government and highly regulated sectors.
Operational parity and sovereignty
Oracle stated that OCI Dedicated Region25 maintains operational parity with its public cloud environment, offering the full range of AI and SaaS services. Customers can deploy the entire Oracle cloud stack onsite, retaining control over their data and IT systems, and thus meeting data residency and regulatory needs without compromising on service scope or capabilities.
With Oracle operating the entire Dedicated Region25 as a managed service, client organisations can concentrate on developing and deploying digital services rather than managing underlying infrastructure.
Distributed and hybrid cloud capabilities
OCI Dedicated Region25 is part of Oracle's distributed cloud portfolio. Oracle positions its distributed cloud products as providing benefits such as control, flexibility, and full sovereign cloud deployment options. This includes public cloud regions, isolated and government-specific clouds, as well as partner-resell models through Oracle Alloy.
Hybrid cloud solutions are supported through products such as Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer and Compute Cloud@Customer, with presence already in over 60 countries. For remote and edge use cases, OCI offers roving edge infrastructure devices capable of supporting remote AI inferencing.
In multicloud environments, OCI can be deployed within all major hyperscale providers, enabling integration and low-latency access to Oracle database services. Interconnect arrangements allow customers to combine features and capabilities across OCI, AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
