Oracle anchors Apac AI growth through Singapore but layoff concerns loom

[SINGAPORE] Cloud computing company Oracle is fast-tracking its Asia-Pacific expansion plans through Singapore, betting that its push into artificial intelligence will outshadow recent reports of its layoffs.

“Our commitment and resourcing will continue to point to Singapore being an important hub for Oracle,” said Garrett Ilg, executive vice-president for Japan and Asia-Pacific at Oracle.

Ilg identified small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Asia as one of the main growth drivers.

Many of such companies still route their operations through Singapore, even if they lack a physical footprint in the Republic, he told The Business Times in an interview.

To capture the SME market in Asia-Pacific, Oracle is heavily leveraging its AI Customer Excellence Center in Singapore.

Established in 2025, the regional hub – which allows organisations across South-east Asia to physically test new AI technology against their operational bottlenecks – currently hosts 20 to 50 companies a month.

Ilg expects this number to rise as regional adoption of AI picks up.

To further solidify on its positioning among the SMEs, Ilg said, the company will compete aggressively on price – a primary hurdle for SMEs when it comes to AI adoption.

The tech company will do so by embedding more than 600 AI agents directly into its core subscription model without charging additional add-on fees for SMEs.

“We will provide infrastructure on a cost basis that is equivalent to what everyone else is positioning in the market – but inside of ours, AI comes with it,” Ilg said.

Job displacement worries

But despite the company’s aggressive pivot for more AI, Oracle finds itself caught up in a wave of industry-wide job cuts.

This follows a global trend of layoffs within the tech sector, with other major players such as Amazon, Meta and Salesforce reducing their headcounts as they pivot aggressively towards AI.

In early April, it was reported that the tech giant was laying off thousands of employees globally as it seeks capital to fund its data centre operations. But the reports did not specify if Singapore was among the markets affected. The company did not comment on the job cuts.

To sustain its AI ambition, Oracle announced in February that it intends to raise as much as US$50 billion this year through a combination of debt and equity sales.

Meanwhile, Wall Street projects the cloud computing unit’s free cash flow to remain negative in the coming years, indicated provided by Bloomberg.

But against the backdrop of job layoffs linked to AI, Ilg stressed that Oracle needs to be its own “customer zero” and utilise technology to keep itself nimble and innovative.

As AI forces companies to relook their operating model, Ilg said that he expects the Oracle workforce to become more productive.

However, he warned that disruption caused by AI will spare no one – not even executives such as himself – as it will force people to make decisions faster, forecast more accurately and even review work faster.

“I do not think (the change caused by AI) is going to spare anyone,” he said.

“As (AI) transforms, it will transform everything from the very front line of an organisation all the way through to the very top.”