US software giant Oracle officially announced on Wednesday that it has established its first data center in South Korea for cloud computing service, stepping up efforts to compete against global and local vendors in the country’s growing cloud market.

During a press conference in Seoul, Oracle Korea chief Tom Song said the company’s Cloud Infrastructure Seoul Region became operational May 14. It is one of 19 new data centers that Oracle plans to build by year-end in Mumbai, Sydney and other locations.

Having started to provide service for local companies such as KEB Hana Bank, SK Stoa and the Samsung Genome Institute, Oracle said it will build a second data center in Korea next year to improve the company’s cloud computing services.

“Enterprises in Korea have long trusted Oracle to manage their mission critical business data and we’ve had significant customer demand,” Song said. “The availability of the Seoul Region division will provide our customers with the most consistent high performance and service level.”

Oracle officials said that while the Seoul Region division began operations two months ago, the announcement had to be withheld until July due to “company policy.” Oracle often makes major business announcements during the earnings season.

The US company has now become the latest global tech giant to begin cloud computing services for companies operating in Korea, where an increasing number of firms use the advanced data management system to improve business efficiency.

Currently, Samsung, LG, Lotte Group and other conglomerates here rely on Amazon Web Service and Microsoft for cloud computing services. Meanwhile, Naver and other local vendors have established their own data centers to compete against the dominance of global companies.

Stressing its leading status in the data management market, Oracle said it would catch up with competitors in the cloud computing business. Using its autonomous Gen-2 cloud computing infrastructure, the company said, it is possible to upload massive data without the risk of losing it to outside attacks.

“We focused on giving you the ability to lift and shift, or move and improve without running the risk of re-architecting these workloads,” said Oracle Cloud Vice President of Product Management Bryan Thompson.

To enhance its technological prowess, Oracle pledged to enhance its partnership with Microsoft in the cloud computing service. Last month, the two firms announced a cloud interoperability partnership enabling customers to connect Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

While the cooperation is still limited to some eastern cities of the US, Song said Oracle has “sufficient interest” in expanding the cooperation globally. If it happens, customers can work anywhere to seamlessly connect Azure and OCI to run workloads across the cloud environment, he added. 

“Of course, it will be finalized after discussions with the headquarters’ alliance team” tasked with cloud computing cooperation with Microsoft, Song said. “But I believe there is enough interest from both companies.”

jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com">(jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)