Oracle Plans to Move Global HQ to Nashville

Oracle chairman Larry Ellison has revealed that the tech giant will be moving its global headquarters to Nashville to be in the heart of the nation’s fastest-growing healthcare hub.

At the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville on Tuesday, Ellison disclosed that a $1.2 billion campus the company is developing on riverfront property in the city “will ultimately be our world headquarters.”

“It’s the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry,” Ellison said, during what was billed as a “fireside chat” with Dr. Bill Frist, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, CNBC reported.

Describing Nashville as a “fabulous place to live,” Ellison said Oracle employees are excited about plans for the new campus. Construction has yet to begin on a riverfront site the tech giant bought in 2021.

“Our people love it here, and we think it’s the center of our future,” Ellison said.

The announcement of the headquarters move apparently was not planned; the Oracle founder also told Frist, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Oracle, which moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2020, made its first big move into the healthcare sector in 2022 with a $28 billion acquisition of medical records software giant Cerner.

In 2021, Oracle paid nearly $254 million for more than 60 acres of riverfront property in Nashville, including 13 parcels on the east bank of the Cumberland River. The site was occupied by a Ready Mix concrete plant, trucking service stations and other industrial tenants.

When it made the land purchase — which comprised almost half of a 125-acre redevelopment known as River North — Oracle called its project “a second U.S. headquarters,” according to a report in The Tennessean.

Oracle, which originally said it expected to complete the new campus in time to open by 2030, is negotiating with the city over infrastructure at the site, including a proposed pedestrian bridge connecting the two sides of the river.

At the Oracle Health Summit, held at the Conrad Nashville Hotel, Ellison also disclosed some design elements of the new campus, The Tennessean reported.

“It’s not going to look anything like a corporate campus. What we’re building is a park. A park first that has buildings in it. Those buildings are not only office buildings and include a community clinic with the very latest versions of our software,” Ellison said.

“There will be a concert venue, a lake with a floating stage where we can have concerts for the community. We want to be part of the community,” he said.