OCP Global Summit 2025 | Oracle | Building Zettascale AI Clusters with OCI: Scaling Together with an Open Ecosystem
Introduction
At OCP Global Summit 2025, Oracle gave a talk on how to build zettascale AI superclusters with OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure). As AI infrastructure expands rapidly, Oracle stressed that speed, scale and open standards are the three core keys to next-generation data centers, and is using the OCP community to drive standardization and reduce supply chain and deployment risk. Building Zettascale AI Clusters….
Content
OCI's Development and Multicloud Strategy
Oracle reviewed OCI's history: it launched its public cloud in 2017, moved into high-performance database services (Exadata on RDMA) in 2019, and in 2021 kicked off a multicloud strategy, deploying OCI inside other hyperscalers' data centers. The goal is to "bring the cloud to where customers are," rather than requiring customers to migrate to OCI's own regions. Building Zettascale AI Clusters….
Zettascale AI Superclusters
After the AI infrastructure boom took off in 2023, Oracle kept expanding RDMA, GPU superclusters and networking technology. The Zettascale Supercluster announced in 2024 supports more than 130,000 GPUs, and more recently Oracle has scaled further to gigawatt-class data center campuses, working with NVIDIA on multiple hyperscale clusters at a scale of "millions of GPUs" — truly unprecedented. Building Zettascale AI Clusters….
Three Major Challenges for AI Data Centers
Oracle argued that AI infrastructure is restructuring the data center across the board:
Server standardization and liquid cooling: pushing the OV3 standard and calling for faster standards for liquid-cooled servers and I/O bays.
Networking and optical interconnect: adopting an OCP-aligned AI fabric and launching large-scale superclusters with NVIDIA. Oracle stressed the importance of LPO/LRO optical modules in reducing network power, so more energy goes directly to GPU compute.
Power and grid challenges: gigawatt-class data centers cause load oscillation, which must be solved through standardized coordination of UPS, supercapacitors, battery storage and the grid. Oracle also pointed out that per-rack power will jump from 50kW to 1MW, so data center designs must be "future-compatible" to avoid rebuilds. Building Zettascale AI Clusters….
The Value of Open Standards
Oracle emphasized that at gigawatt scale, open standards are the guarantee of speed and scale. OCP server, networking and power standards let multiple suppliers work together, lowering manufacturing risk and accelerating buildouts. Oracle even co-signed an open letter calling on the industry to establish AI data center standards — from cooling to power delivery to networking and telemetry — to ensure rapid future evolution. Building Zettascale AI Clusters….
Conclusion
The core message of Oracle's talk: the future of AI data centers will be defined by scale, speed and open standards. From servers to power infrastructure, the industry must break with traditional data center design thinking and build a new generation of architecture fit for zettascale AI.
Further Perspectives
Technology impact
Oracle's "gigawatt-class AI campus" view highlights that future data center challenges aren't just IT problems but power grid and energy engineering problems. This will accelerate development of power electronics (SiC/GaN) and energy storage as well as smart grid standards.
Supply chain observations
Oracle's emphasis on the power share of LPO/LRO optical modules is a new opportunity for optical communications vendors (Innolight, Eoptolink, Lumentum).
Power and cooling standardization drives new demand for UPS, battery storage and liquid cooling vendors. Unlike the traditional IT supply chain, this is more like "the intersection of the energy and cloud industries."
Market trends
Hyperscalers such as Oracle, Microsoft, Google and Meta are accelerating gigawatt-class data center buildouts, which may create a new competitive landscape where "data center capacity is national power."
The call for open standards means the OCP community will exert more influence over energy, power and cooling than it has over servers and networking in the past — potentially the focal point of the next battle for industry leadership.
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