Oracle just made its biggest ever acquisition for Cerner's AI

Oracle's gargantuan $28.3 billion acquisition of health care data company Cerner, the largest deal in its 44-year history, is not just about electronic patient records. From algorithmic systems that predict the likelihood a patient will contract sepsis to tech that tracks hospital bed capacity, Cerner will bring an array of cloud-based data analytics and AI technologies to Oracle as it competes with Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM and others to serve the health care industry's data and AI needs. In fact, the deal is poised to shift some business away from AWS, which Cerner named as its preferred cloud partner in 2019. Oracle's acquisition of Cerner, a company that got its start in health care IT in 1979, is expected to close in 2022. The all-cash deal is also expected to improve Oracle's bottom line in its first year, the company said in a press release.