Tony Blair, Larry Ellison, and the AI data grab

Tony Blair rarely looked smaller. In February, on a large Dubai scene, he sat alone with his premiere and minister’s ranks that filled the auditor of the World Governments Summit, and he was muffled in introducing his boss. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who stands on a giant screen, made him the richest man in the world this month.

After a joke about his good friend Elon Musk, Ellison warned the audience about the future of artificial super -susterigent than expected. Blair asked him, should governments everywhere?

“The first thing that a country needs to do is to unite all its data to be consumed and used by the AI ​​model,” Ellison said.

When his first biography appeared, he was the title: The difference between God and Larry Ellison: *God does not think he is Larry Ellison.

Now 81 years old, Ellison’s trademark pencil beard has not changed from the 2003 cover photo. The billionaire used “us için to refer to all progress in artificial intelligence. However, no man said that Ellison’s personal foundation has invested between 2021 and 2023. Tony Blair Global Change Institute (TBI), nor has he promised $ 218 million since then.

The owner of the super yachts, two hunter jets and a Hawai Island was specific about which data should be combined, and there was an example in his mind: “In England, NHS has an incredible amount of population data, but it was“ disintegrated ”. Underneath, Blair shook his head, holding his exaggerated notebook with the TBI.

Two weeks later, the Blair Institute “Management in AI Age: England’s National Database Library Building“.

In particular, the TBI made lobbying on technology and had policy proposals discussed by the government. Critics say that the UK is part of a major impact operation that can still result in the US technology companies, which control the most valuable data of the UK.

The TBI is different from the other UK Thinking Authority. Ellison donations saw that close to 1,000 staff grew by working in at least 45 countries. He likes the US financing and influence levels, so British colleagues, such as policy exchange, had £ 4.3 million in the past financial year, while the Institute of Public Policy Studies recorded £ 4.3 million in 2023, the TBI turnover was $ 145.3 million. The Institute insisted that Ellison was only one of many major funding providers, and the chief policy strategist Benedict Macon-Cooney said to Media, “There was no conflict of interest and that the donations were chained”.

Blair himself does not receive a salary from the TBI, but in recent years, McKinsey and Silicon Valley Giants Meta, such as the blue chip companies. In 2018, before the financing fluctuation of Oracle’s founder, TBI’s best paid director won US $ 400,000. In 2023, last year, the accounts were available, the best winner received $ 1.26 million.

A former staff described the influence of this cash injection, the culture of the culture is to toxic as a fuck, and the others described an artificial intelligence drying form that silences the nuance and pushes the limits of lobbying for Oracle.

Some TBI personnel – therefore, including a number that allocated – says cash injection produces a toxic culture dominated by AI optimism, which is full of favoritism in the Institute, silences the nuance and pushing the lobby boundaries for Oracle.

Researcher News Rooms Lighthouse Reports and Democracy for Sale Democracy – International Reporting Coalition Big Tech’s invisible hand, working with support – most of the anonymity on condition of 28 existing and former TBI staff met. The testimony supported by the documents obtained under the laws of public certificates and the Freedom of Information defines an institution that is unusual to the British government, withdrawn to a common seclusion with Oracle and willing to enter “technology sales ıyla with governments for the rest of the world – sometimes at the potential loss of local population – under the guise of consultancy.

“When it comes to the Tech policy in the UK, a former senior consultant said,“ The role of the TBI is to go to developing economies and sell them to Larry Ellison’s equipment. Oracle and TBI do not leave. ”

A TBI spokesman said: “TBI and Oracle are two separate beings. With Oracle, we cooperate to help our jobs to support some of the poorest countries in the world and we are proud of it. […] TBI does not defend Oracle’s commercial interests and does not defend any technology provider. “

Oracle refused to comment when contacting this article. Larry Ellison Foundation He did not respond to the request for comments.

Hope and Data Land

Ellison and Blair’s relationship began while continuing, Chicago trained entrepreneurial charitable donations, and then public contracts were made. In 2003, Ellison and Blair had a photo opportunity at Downing Street to mark a material gift to 40 experts in the pump. In technology circles, this is known as “soil and expansion .. According to data collected by supply analysts Tussell, Oracle has been contracted by the British government hundreds of times since then and has gained £ 1.1 billion in public sector revenue since the beginning of 2022.

While Oracle founder, CEO of the company, Safra Catz, in 2016, has been commissioned as “everything CEO ün since Ellison’s re -assigning the Ellison office, while the US President Donald Trump, whom he worked in the transition team. Trump named Ellison among the investors who were ready to have a share in Tiktok’s US operations, and David, son of Billionaire, took responsibility for Paramount after merging with Skydance, and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. It was reported that he was working on an offer.

Blossomed Blossomed, from the former Prime Minister to the recruitment consultant to the world’s political and business elite. The couple took a vacation together on the shores of Sardinia. In 2022, the former Prime Minister, Oracle, “a shared vision to advance global health”, “can be analyzed and used to improve health results in a place stored in a place stored in a personal video message stored in a personal video message.

There is a reason for men who are built on their reserves on AI investments: NHS and health data at the unique population level. Technology experts talk about the health records of the UK in almost silenced tones. Although it has some comparable health data sets, such as the medical records of Europe and the US veterans, none of them have the depth and width of NHS records dating back to 1948. The potential commercial value is estimated from £ 5 billion and £ 10 billion per year to the genome ranking from drugs.

TBI, Emek and NHS data

When labor came to power in England last July, it ended the promising economic growth and the productivity crisis of the country. Only five days after the election of Keir Starmer, Blair said that the TBI was the “game -moder ği that AI was looking for at the“ Future of England ”conference. During the months, Starmer was parroting Blair’s tongue – and the TBI was at the box of the new AI policy, which pushed the government’s interests and the worldview of the founder’s founder.

“Here: ‘Such gains are inevitable.’ But they’re not, ”he said. “TBI does not defend this capacity in NHS. They say: Let’s use an outsourcing to our friends.”

The TBI was welcomed by a Callow Download Street operation. Peter Kyle, a former consultant in the second period of Blair, was appointed as technology secretary despite very little experience in the sector and asked governments to show lar sense of humility ”to major technology companies.
The TBI had prepared the ground before winning the Labor Party. The institute staff advised Starmer’s team on opposition. TBI in May 2024 report This called for “two radical action üzere to correct Britain’s“ data access problem :: Create a “single front door özenli providing“ smooth access to NHS data; And while the program holds the government control, it contains all this data outside NHS.

Less than two months after Starmer won, Charlotte Refsum, the TBI Health Policy Director, was invited to the health department to meet Digital Policy Chief Felix Greaves. documents It was obtained under the foi show. Greaves asked for help in designing the participation of a giant people about GP data and digital health identity. Refsum told Refsum that he had to “learn lessons ından from previous health data scandals who hardened the public against data sharing with private companies.

Refsum was later given an official role in Labour’s 10 -year NHS plan, which advised Refsum on data and technology policy in a 10 -year NHS plan.

When this plan was published, it included two radical ideas of the TBI. The new “Health Data Research Service” will serve as a front door to provide a single, safe door to health and care data, and it will be mainly financed by the government, but will be hosted by the Wellcome Medical Research aid organization.

The TBI later threw a “summer party en around the launch of a 10 -year plan in the center of London of the consulting giant McKinsey. The event was included in the invited guests with NHS England President, Penny Dash-Penny Dash with “NHS, Senior Leaders from private sector, pharmaceutical companies and investors with“ NHS, Private Sector, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies and Investors ”.

The TBI also seems to introduce Oracle products directly to the advocacy of an opponent’s product. In August 2024, the article on the Preparation of NHS for AI Period ”found“ good reasons için to create new digital health records with an existing system operated by Oracle. In addition, using a system operated by the competitor Palanttir – 330 million £ Federation Data Platform – “A controversial option”And the product of the product was slow in making progress due to the opposition of data basketal groups”.

In a later article, TBI, NHS, DWP and HMRC proposed to connect data. All three bodies are Oracle customers and make the company a open frontrunner for potential new work.

One TBI spokesman said: uz We are working with Oracle because we do not defend technology solutions. We work with Oracle and other technology companies because we believe that technology has the key to the future. TBI is impartial in supporting government customers in technology delivery.

This is an edited extract. Go for the whole story Here. A version of this story was also published. New statesman.

Big Tech’s invisible hand A collaborative journalism investigation directed by the Brazilian news organization Agência pública And Centro Latinoamericano de researcher periodística (clip)With Cikey (Australia), CUESTİóN PúBlica (Colombia), Daily Maverick (South Africa), Al -diario ar (Argentina), Alti (Paraguay), Facultum (El Salvador), ICL (Brazil), Researcher Journalism Foundation – IJF (Canada), Lab (Chile), Lighthouse reports (International), N+focus (Mexican), Núcleo (Brazil), Premiums (Ecuador), Technology Policy Press (USA) and Tempo (Indonesia). Unlimited reporters And law team Hand Veinte supported the project and La Fábrica Meméicica Designed a visual identity.