Why Asia-Pacific’s regulatory diversity makes it ideal for AI adoption

Highly regulated industries bring cloud on-premises to keep data secure for AI.

Asia-Pacific’s highly diverse regulatory landscape makes the region a fertile ground for AI adoption, said Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President for Technology and Customer Strategy at Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific.

“The business environment in Asia Pacific is very dynamic. It’s young and diverse—with huge populations, different demographics, cultures, and languages,” Chelliah told Asian Business Review at the sidelines of Oracle AI World 2025 in Las Vegas. “That diversity naturally lends itself to AI adoption.”

“AI adoption is all about personalisation down to the very edge,” he added. “From a business and landscape perspective, we see a lot of choice.”

Chelliah said Oracle is helping to accelerate AI adoption across the region by removing barriers for enterprises, particularly in regulated industries such as healthcare and banking.

The company enables organisations to deploy AI in the environment that best meets their business and compliance needs.

“It may be on-premises within their existing systems, on Oracle Cloud, or in a multi-cloud deployment with other hyperscalers,” he said.

“The key is allowing enterprises to keep their data where it is and bring AI models to the data—while respecting existing security and compliance policies.”

He said regulated industries are increasingly bringing the cloud on-premises through Oracle’s dedicated region services, while non-regulated industries are embracing AI more freely across public clouds.

Chelliah also highlighted Oracle Database 23ai, the latest version of the company’s database, now equipped with AI features built directly inside.

“It gives you a seamless ability to turn on AI capabilities no matter where you are,” Chelliah said. “We bring the cloud to where customers are in their journey. You can have development happening in the cloud and bring production environments back on-premises.”