Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison has made a bold claim about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, stating that it could detect cancer, develop personalized vaccines, and make those vaccines available to individuals within 48 hours. Ellison made these remarks at a White House gathering that also included SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, where Donald Trump announced $500B in new AI spending in a program to be called “Stargate.”
Ellison explained the process, stating, “Little fragments of those tumors float around in your blood. So you can do early cancer detection. If you can do it using AI, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test and using AI to look at the blood test. Once you gene sequence that cancer tumor, you can then vaccinate the person – design a vaccine for every individual person that vaccinates them against that cancer. That mRNA vaccine, you can make that robotically, again using AI, in about 48 hours.”
He emphasized the potential impact: “So imagine, early cancer detection, the development of a cancer vaccine for your particular cancer aimed at you and having that vaccine available for you in 48 hours — this is the promise of AI and the promise of the future.”
These comments come amidst news of a significant joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, known as Stargate. This project aims to build a network of AI-focused data centers and generate over 100,000 jobs in the United States. The companies, along with other equity backers, have pledged a $100 billion investment over the next four years.
Ellison revealed that construction has already begun on the first of these data centers in Texas.
The plan is to build twenty data centers, each spanning half a million square feet. He suggested that the Stargate project could provide the computing power necessary for AI to analyze electronic health records and assist doctors in patient care. This aligns with his vision of AI playing a transformative role in healthcare.
