Oracle founder Larry Ellison speaks in Nashville about curing cancer with AI

The last time Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison spoke publicly to business leaders in Nashville, he made the big announcement: Music City would become the location of Oracle’s global headquarters by 2030. During his second public address in Nashville this year at the Oracle Health Summit on Wednesday, Ellison focused on his broader vision for the future of the industry — beyond Tennessee and even the United States

Hundreds of conference participants streamed into the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Nashville on Wednesday to watch the 80-year-old multi-billionaire speak with immunologist Dr. Listening to John Bell from the University of Oxford.

Ellison discussed the progress Oracle has made in the two years since acquiring health technology company Cerner, its lofty goals of using artificial intelligence to cure cancer, and what he learned from his “dear friend” Elon Musk.

Here are highlights of Ellison’s plans and Oracle’s recent progress:

How Oracle’s Larry Ellison believes AI can help cure cancer

Ellison said he believes recent advances in modern technology and AI make now a good time to pursue a cure for cancer with “a reasonable chance of success.”

“It sounds crazy to cure cancer because we’ve been trying for a while,” Ellison said. “But current technology allows us to have third-generation gene sequencing, mRNA technology, diagnostics and the ability to examine DNA fragments and blood for early diagnosis of cancer.”

He said he believes all the necessary technologies for a cure are available.

“To fight cancer, we simply need to turn on the immune system and target it to these tumors,” Ellison said.

Aside from AI’s potential role in reading gene sequences, Ellison says it can also help with early diagnosis and identifying when approved cancer drugs are effective against additional types of cancer.

Ellison on lessons learned from Elon Musk’s career

When Bell asked Ellison what it takes to develop highly creative, innovative and science-based solutions to the world’s problems, he spoke directly about his friend Elon Musk, the famous technology entrepreneur who this year headquartered his supercomputer company xAI in Memphis had.

“My dear friend Elon Musk, I’ve watched him at work and what I’ve learned, of course, we’ve boiled it down to ‘Musk’s Law.'” You can tackle some gigantic problems if you step back, go back to basic principles, and say, “Where does the problem begin and where does the problem end?” Ellison said.

He cited as an example that Musk built charging stations for electric vehicles around the world and increased global battery production to make Tesla successful.

Transforming corn to thrive in the desert

Global food supply is one of the problems Ellison wants to apply Musk’s Law to, particularly in the Horn of Africa.

“We have plenty of land to grow. That’s not the problem,” Ellison said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if labyrinth, aka corn, could grow in the desert? You would have to make it a drought-resistant plant, design labyrinth to be more nutrient dense and drug resistant.”

Oracle focuses on health records, biometrics and cybersecurity

When Oracle acquired electronic health records company Cerner Corp. in 2022, the company decided to build its system from scratch and even use AI to help develop the application, according to Ellison.

“It took Cerner about 25 years to write their system. We completely rewrote this system in 14 months,” Ellison said.

He added that access to the application will be via biometric data and passwords for Oracle systems will be completely obsolete by the end of 2025.

Hadley Hitson covers business news for The Tennessean. She can be reached at [email protected]. To support their work, Subscribe to The Tennessean.