CXO Forum 2024 Sponsor Series: In conversation with Mr Chin Ying Loong, Oracle

In the era of digital transformation, cloud services have become indispensable for business of all sizes. The flexibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness they offer are driving widespread adoption. At the same time, telcos are seeking new avenues for growth and innovation as traditional revenue streams face increasing pressure. The convergence of these two trends have given rise to a very powerful synergy—partnerships between cloud services providers and telcos.

Mr Chin Ying Loong, Regional Managing Director for ASEAN & Sage at Oracle, a Bridge Alliance technology partner, spoke with Ken Wee, our SVP Partnership & New Business about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, how Oracle is leveraging Generative AI, Oracle’s services for telcos and its partnership with Bridge Alliance that will benefit our member operators.

Ying Loong: Good afternoon, Ken, and thank you for having me here today.

Ken: Great. Ying Loong, Oracle is a technology partner of Bridge Alliance. And more importantly, recently, you have also signed a Regional Collaboration Framework Agreement (RCFA) with Bridge Alliance at the Mobile World Congress. Could you share more about this agreement that you have?

Ying Loong: Certainly Ken, happy to share more about this. So let me just take one step back right now. As most of your Bridge member operators (BMOs) would know right prior to the partnership with this Bridge Alliance, we have always been working very closely with some of the BMOs who have procured licenses from us over the years.

So with this move and agreement to the cloud, we are now able to provide all your BMOs with access to data and cloud services powered by AI. So this agreement was forged with Bridge Alliance at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March this year. So this collaboration executed through the RCFA, as you mentioned, will lower barriers to entry and drive cost efficiencies for BMOs in Asia Pacific to procure Oracle cloud services.

So one of the key points of this agreement is virtually seamless access for Bridge Alliance member operators to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or OCI, we call it, and also our full suite of more than 100 cloud services. So the BMOs can now gain access to these secure, cost effective and scalable cloud services for mission critical workloads, adding a lot of value to their operations today.

 

Ken: So you talk about the Oracle OCI. Can you share a bit more about it? And how does it stand out against the other hyperscalers?

Ying Loong: Very happy to Ken. In fact, this is a very common question that I get asked by so many different members of yours. So Oracle first of all adopts a very unique approach by developing a very complete, open and also a unified suite of cloud solutions. And when I say unified means, you know, from industry solutions, to the horizontal core applications to also the basic infrastructure layer.

And OCI is also the only next generation cloud that’s available today and it’s designed to address the issues that customers care most about, which is deployment of choices, interoperability, better price performance and also built-in security. OCI continues to be one of the fastest growing global hyperscale public cloud providers today. And it has spanned across 81 regions worldwide today.

As the growth and needs for data continue, so is the demand for data and AI-enabled decision making. So Oracle is embedding AI into many aspects of its of our comprehensive suite of enterprise applications, and also our industry solutions to its world renowned databases and cloud, so that AI can become automatically part of all the product and services.

So this will help customers achieve a real competitive advantage by choosing when, how or where to apply AI to their data, wherever it leaves across the entire technology stack, including on premise and also in the cloud.

 

Ken: So you mentioned about AI, which is very interesting. As we all know, GenAI is now the latest development in AI. So what is Oracle doing in this space for GenAI?

Ying Loong: Very good question. Right so where is Oracle, what is Oracle doing and our differentiator? So you know AI, you’re right, continues to be one of the highest growth, and it also significantly has impacted how we live and work. We really see the impact that AI has made and continues to make as well as the future impact across so many different industries.

In fact, we announced the general availability of our OCI generative AI service, along with new innovations that make it easier for enterprises to take advantage of the latest advancement of generative AI. So we have embedded AI across all layers of our technology stack, integrating generative AI into our applications, and also the converged databases, all supported by a fast and cost effective AI infrastructure.

So Oracle Modern Data Platform also spans across all industries and use cases, for example in the retail space. We have improved customer experience with much better targeted offers. We also offer in-store real-time tracking and predictions, and we are also able to accurately forecast suppliers’ lead time.

 

Ken: Good. I would like to move into a little bit of the telco industry. So what have you been observing about the trends in the telco industry and what is Oracle doing in line with this trend?

Ying Loong: Yeah telco is one of the most competitive industries. Just let me give you what Oracle is doing and helping. So as you know telco services revenue for the B2C side have flattened due to fierce competition. But the B2B segment is seeing stronger growth as clients of yours continue to digitise and new opportunities are emerging.

AIS, one of the largest telcos in Thailand, is one of the examples where they are leveraging this segment of B2B and is transitioning from a telco to a techco. So, AIS has recently announced the deployment of Oracle Alloy, the first in ASEAN to have done so. And this Oracle Alloy is a complete cloud infrastructure platform that enables partners like AIS to become cloud providers and AIS is now able to offer a full range of cloud services to expand their businesses.

AIS Cloud will be Thailand’s first locally owned and operated hyperscale cloud. And this means AIS customers and enterprises in Thailand will have access to more than 100 of OCI services, including the latest AI services and capabilities that we talked about earlier on. So AIS Cloud will also help AIS customers address data residency and sovereignty requirements such as the Thailand PDPA Act and the Cyber Security Act.

And it’s also the only hyperscale cloud in Thailand providing business resilience with in-country disaster recovery capabilities.

Ken: Well, Ying Loong, that is very insightful. Once again, thank you for coming in to Bridge Alliance today.

Ying Loong: Ken, thank you for having me. You know, most privilege dto be here and to be able to address all your BMO members as well. So thank you so much for having me.

Ken: You’re welcome. That was Chin Ying Loong, Regional Managing Director for ASEAN & SAGE at Oracle. Thank you for watching ‘be’ in conversation.