WGS 2025: Unified national data will empower AI to transform government services

Dubai: Unifying national data into a single, secure database that can be easily consumed by AI models will empower governments to deliver better services and improve the lives of their citizens, Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, said during an event in Dubai.

Ellison shared his thoughts during a plenary session moderated by Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, on the second day of the 12th World Government Summit. When asked by Blair to compare the ongoing technology revolution with the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, Ellison pointed out that AI is “a much bigger deal” than anything that has come before.

Superintelligence

The 80-year-old billionaire noted that while the conversation is centered on AI, the world will soon witness artificial superintelligence, which will revolutionise the healthcare sector in terms of diagnosis and therapeutics.

“We will have incredible reasoning power of the ability to discover things that would elude human minds, because this next generation of AI will reason so much faster discover insights so much faster, whether it’s on being able to diagnose cancer in early stages, or design therapies, custom design vaccines for those cancers, custom-made for your genomics and your specific tumour antigens.”

Ellison highlighted how Oracle’s AI-powered satellite imagery, mapping, and data analytics are helping farmers predict crop yields, and how this technology could be scaled to support entire countries and regions.

“AI will fundamentally change our lives, and medicine, agriculture and robotics, across the board.”

Next “big step”

Describing AI models as a “great” and “astonishing” developments, Ellison pointed out the need for governments to unify national data into a single, accessible platform to effectively leverage AI.

“The first thing a country needs to do is to unify all of their data so it can be consumed and used by the AI model,” he said, calling this the “big step” and the “missing link” to ensure AI models can better understand the country.

The UAE, Ellison noted, has a “treasure of data” that could be integrated to improve the quality of healthcare.

“The UAE, for example, they’re incredibly rich in data. They have a lot of population data. The NHS in the UK, has an incredible amount of population data, but it’s fragmented.”

Ellison pointed out that AI models are primarily trained on publicly available data from the internet, but national health records are not available online. Hence, the need to unify all data into a single database for improved outcomes.

“It’s not easily accessible by these AI models. We have to take all of this data we have in our country and move it into a single unified data platform,” he said, adding: “So, when we ask questions, the data model has all the information it needs to answer the question, discover the insight and recommend an action.”

Biometrics to replace passwords

Ellison stressed the importance of secure, sovereign data centres and advanced security measures like biometric logins to protect sensitive data.

“Data centres, because of the privacy requirements, need to be in our countries, or they’re not terribly useful. But they also need to be secure.”

Ellison said that soon biometric-based security systems will replace password-based authentication to prevent data breaches and ransomware attacks.

“This is the last year you will ever log into an Oracle system with a password. The computer will recognise you and your voice. It might ask you to put your index finger on the key, and we’re absolutely certain it’s you. There’s no reason to enter a password.”

Ellison highlighted that passwords are too easily stolen, and data centres can be taken hostage.

“The ransomware business is a very good business is getting bigger and better every year. But there is something we can do about it. We can make sure that we’re using the latest security technology, and it is going to be biometrics assisted by AI to make sure that you are,” he said, noting that current digital tools are “primitive”, and stressed on the need to modernise systems.