Microsoft's Richard Hage has joined Oracle, as the company rapidly builds out its data center portfolio to meet growing AI demand.

Hage has been named the vice president of data center design, in a previously unreported departure from Microsoft.

Hage spent 12 years at Microsoft, the last third as director of global strategy, data center engineering.

Prior to his lengthy stint at Microsoft, he was an architect at Corgan for just under six years.

"I'm excited to join Oracle at such a pivotal time, where delivering world-class data center infrastructure is so critical to driving the company's growth and success," Hage said of the move.

The company is currently hiring for staff to join Hage's data center design team to "oversee the conceptualization and development of data center whitespace designs for multi-cloud sites, ensuring they align with Oracle's strategic objectives and goals."

The hiring comes despite mass layoffs at Oracle, even amidst record revenues and a rocketing share price.

Oracle has traditionally leaned heavily on partners to help build out its cloud, and was the largest lessor of US data center capacity in 2024.

The company is deeply involved in the development of OpenAI's Abilene Stargate campus, a project led by Crusoe. That campus is expected to form part of a massive $300 billion cloud contract OpenAI signed with the company.

Meta is also in talks to spend $20bn on Oracle cloud services, while the company also hosts Temu and TikTok - with Oracle close to acquiring the latter company's US operations.