Premalakshmi PR, VP - Technology Cloud, Oracle India

With over 24 years of experience in technology and cloud leadership, Premalakshmi PR has led large-scale digital transformations, built high-performing teams, and driven business growth across global markets. Her work focuses on accelerating innovation through AI, cloud, and data-driven strategies while fostering client success. Known for her authentic leadership and strategic vision, she continues to shape the future of enterprise technology with purpose and impact.

In a recent interaction with Mandvi Singh, Managing Editor at siliconindia, Premalakshmi PR, VP - Technology Cloud, Oracle India, shared her insights on how Oracle is driving India’s digital transformation through AI-led cloud innovation, secure infrastructure, and industry-focused solutions.

How do you see the cloud industry evolving over the next few years as AI becomes core to every business strategy?

The cloud industry is evolving rapidly as AI becomes core to every business strategy. From an industry perspective, Oracle provides everything required to unlock the future potential for customers, especially from an AI standpoint. AI is changing the world, becoming critical in every business strategy across industries. With this evolution, AI-powered cloud infrastructure solutions are driving enhanced automation, better resource and cost efficiency, and personalized user experiences, making cloud infrastructure smarter and adaptive to business needs.

In India, the AI market is expected to reach around USD 17 billion by 2027, growing rapidly with strong enterprise investments, expanding digital infrastructure, and funding. Enterprises are embedding AI to boost productivity, customer engagement, and digital transformation across sectors like financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and education. With over 600,000 AI professionals and growing STEM education focus, AI is shaping the future of the cloud industry and how businesses will thrive ahead.

Premalakshmi PR, says, "AI is no longer just a technology layer it’s becoming the foundation of every business strategy, redefining how industries innovate, operate, and grow".

Oracle unveiled multiple innovations at AI World 2025. Which of these will create the fastest enterprise impact in the Indian market, especially for organizations balancing growth with cost pressures?

At AI World 2025, Oracle unveiled a series of groundbreaking innovations that promise to reshape enterprise AI adoption, particularly within the Indian market, where organizations continue to balance growth ambitions with cost optimization. Among the highlights was the Oracle 26ai Database a milestone that embeds AI directly into core data management, enabling businesses to build next-generation AI-driven databases. This integration allows seamless AI for data development, management, analytics, and application development, setting a new benchmark in enterprise intelligence.

The introduction of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), now generally available, empowers enterprises to host a full-fledged public cloud within their own data centers, combining 150+ AI and cloud services to accelerate transformation. The AI Factory further strengthens Oracle’s position by offering customers and partners AI playbooks, migration services, and agentic platforms to speed up AI adoption.

Complementing this, the AI Data Platform integrates the entire data lifecycle from ingestion to visualization enabling end-to-end AI workflows within a single ecosystem. With global system integrators pledging over $1.5 billion in investment and skilling initiatives, these innovations collectively signal Oracle’s commitment to enabling enterprises to harness AI securely,  efficiently, and at scale, redefining digital transformation across industries.

What are the key growth drivers behind Oracle Cloud’s momentum in India, and which sectors are scaling the fastest on OCI?

In India, Oracle has demonstrated remarkable growth over the years, with FY25 witnessing a 65% rise in bookings and a 35% year over-year increase in consumption, reflecting how organizations are leveraging cloud technologies to drive digital transformation. Entering FY26, the momentum remains strong, fueled by recent innovations like Acceleron, AIDP, Lakehouse, and multi-cloud solutions.

The financial services sector contributes over 30% to Oracle’s growth, followed by ITES at 23% and the public sector at 11%. Retail, e-Commerce, startups, and digital natives add another 30- 40%. With 55% of workloads now cloud native and AI-driven, Oracle continues to strengthen its market leadership.

Digital natives and startups inherently begin their journey with the cloud, bringing greater awareness and agility in adopting advanced technologies

With Oracle AI Database 26ai bringing AI directly into data management, how do you foresee these reshaping traditional data architectures and accelerating decision-making?

Across industries, enterprises today whether in banking, financial services, healthcare, public sector, or digital-native segments are leveraging multiple databases for varied functions, leading to challenges in data management and integration. Data silos and complex movement between warehouses hinder timely insights.

With Oracle 26ai, organizations can now standardize operations on a single AI-powered database that unifies application development, database management, analytics, and vector search capabilities. By embedding AI natively within the database, Oracle eliminates the need for separate infrastructures or tools, enabling enterprises to seamlessly combine private and public data for faster, more accurate insights and streamlined decision-making.

India is emerging as a global leader in digital transformation across sectors like BFSI, healthcare, and manufacturing. What unique AI adoption patterns are you seeing here compared to more mature markets?

The growing adoption of AI across industries is reshaping how organizations innovate, operate, and serve their customers. In the financial services sector, enterprises are harnessing AI to streamline loan processing, improve credit risk analysis, predict customer behavior, and strengthen fraud and risk mitigation frameworks. Healthcare organizations are integrating AI to modernize legacy systems, safeguard patient data, automate medical documentation, and deliver faster, more personalized care.

In retail and manufacturing, AI is powering hyper-personalized shopping experiences, real-time inventory management, and customer profiling. Together, these industry-wide initiatives are driving higher efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and greater cost optimization.

Startups and digital-native companies form a growing innovation engine in India. How is Oracle enabling co-creation, skilling, and easier access to cloud-native AI technologies for this ecosystem?

Digital natives and startups inherently begin their journey with the cloud, bringing greater awareness and agility in adopting advanced technologies. In today’s competitive landscape, differentiation through innovation particularly AI defines their success across sectors such as fintech, e-Commerce, and food delivery.

Oracle actively supports these organizations through extensive training and education initiatives, empowering developers to leverage Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for high-speed performance, AI-powered solutions, and cost efficiency. Beyond startups, Oracle collaborates with entities like NSDC and state governments to strengthen cloud and AI skilling at the academic level, ensuring India’s future workforce is cloud-ready and innovation-driven.

How is Oracle ensuring secure, compliant deployment of AI and cloud workloads in India?

Security remains deeply embedded in Oracle’s foundation, reflecting nearly five decades of expertise in managing missioncritical databases across sectors such as public services, defense, banking, financial services, and telecommunications. Within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), security is always on by default and comes at no additional cost, setting it apart from other hyperscalers.

The latest innovation Acceleron, enhances network-level security by isolating customer data and hosts, ensuring stronger protection. Additionally, advanced encryption safeguards data both at rest and in motion. For Oracle, security is not an add-on but an intrinsic element of its AI and cloud infrastructure design philosophy.