Oracle Corporation, a software giant famous for its database technology, has announced its partnership with Cohere, a Toronto-based start-up that specializes in building and training large language models (LLMs). The two companies are developing a cloud service that would enable enterprises to train their custom LLMs using their private data while protecting their privacy and security. Oracle’s founder and chief technology officer, Larry Ellison, confirmed the partnership during the company’s earnings call.
Partnership and Collaboration
Oracle and Cohere have been working together for quite some time, and last week Oracle was part of Cohere’s $270 million Series C funding round, which valued the start-up at around $2.2 billion. Other investors in the round included Nvidia Corp., Salesforce Ventures, Deutsche Telekom AG, and SentinelOne Inc. Ellison confirmed that Cohere is using Oracle Cloud for training LLMs, which gave Oracle an edge over its competitors. He emphasized that Oracle had more experience and expertise in handling large amounts of data securely and efficiently than any other vendor.
Specialized Large Language Models
Oracle and Cohere are working together to make it easier for enterprise customers to train their customized LLMs using their private data while protecting their data privacy and security. Ellison revealed that Oracle’s own internal application development teams are already using the new Cohere AI cloud service running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). He said that Oracle used its private data to fine-tune and extend the existing Cohere LLMs. As a result, Oracle has created two specialized LLMs, one for medical professionals and another for first responders. Ellison believes that specialized LLMs will help highly trained professionals use their precious time more efficiently.
Competition in Generative AI Services
While Oracle has a cloud AI partnership with Nvidia, it still lags behind the big three hyper-scalers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft, which all have their generative AI services. AWS announced its Bedrock generative AI services in April, Google updated its services and models at its recent I/O conference, and Microsoft benefits from its partnership with OpenAI. However, Ellison boasted that Oracle Cloud is already a multi-billion business for AI workloads, and its generative AI cloud customers have recently signed contracts to purchase more than $2 billion of capacity in Oracle’s Gen2 Cloud.
Oracle is joining the enterprise cloud vendors betting big on generative AI services. Its partnership with Cohere would make it easier for enterprise customers to train their customized LLMs using their private data while protecting their data privacy and security. Oracle has an edge over its competitors because it has more experience and expertise in handling large amounts of data securely and efficiently. While it still lags behind the big three hyper-scalers in generative AI services, Oracle Cloud is already a multi-billion business for AI workloads.
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