After leaving Silicon Valley for Austin in 2020, computer software company Oracle is planning to move its headquarters further east again to Nashville its chairman said Tuesday.
Larry Ellison, who is also Oracle’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said the company is moving a “huge campus” to the city, “which will ultimately be our world headquarters,” CNBC reports. Ellison said Nashville is a “fabulous place to live” and is also “the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry.”
Ellison made the announcement during a conversation with former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. He later told Frist he “shouldn’t have said that,” referring to what seemed like an impromptu announcement.
Nashville is home to over 900 healthcare companies, generates about $97 billion in global revenue, and provides half a million jobs, according to the Nashville Health Care Council. The healthcare industry in Nashville is also responsible for $68 billion in local economic benefit and provides over 333,000 jobs locally.
While Ellison said Oracle is new to the healthcare industry, he believes it has a “moral obligation” to solve its issues — and that Oracle’s employees “love it here, and we think it’s the center of our future.”
Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
In 2022, Oracle acquired the health information technology provider Cerner for $28 billion. The company already had plans for a $1.35 billion corporate campus on Nashville’s East Bank expected to provide 8,500 jobs, Axios reports.
“We’ve been actively engaged with Oracle since very soon after taking office, and it’s been clear that they intended to enhance the level of activity at their River North campus,” Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell told the outlet.