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  • OpenAI, Databricks team up on AI models🤝|Snowflake debuts Open Semantic Interchange❄️|Snowflake World Tour 2025

OpenAI, Databricks team up on AI models🤝|Snowflake debuts Open Semantic Interchange❄️|Snowflake World Tour 2025

Snowflake has so many features, maybe they should be their own cloud

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DATABRICKS

TL;DR: Databricks and OpenAI partner to integrate advanced AI models into Databricks’ platform, enabling enterprises to easily deploy AI for data analysis, automation, and innovation across industries.

  • Databricks and OpenAI have partnered to provide enterprise clients with seamless access to advanced AI models.  

  • The collaboration integrates OpenAI’s language models into Databricks’ platform for easier AI training and deployment.  

  • Enterprises can use the combined platform for natural language processing, data analysis, automation, and workflow enhancement.  

  • This partnership aims to democratize AI technology, boosting innovation and competitiveness across various industries.

Why this matters: Integrating OpenAI’s models into Databricks’ platform democratizes advanced AI, enabling enterprises to innovate faster and improve operational efficiency. This partnership lowers the barrier for AI adoption across industries, transforming business processes and enhancing competitiveness in an increasingly data-driven economy.

SNOWFLAKE

TL;DR: Snowflake launched Open Semantic Interchange to create a universal, open standard for semantic AI data, improving interoperability, reducing AI data chaos, and accelerating cross-platform collaboration and innovation.

  • Snowflake launched Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) to address chaos in AI data handling and interoperability.  

  • OSI aims to create a universal language for exchanging semantic metadata across diverse AI models and tools.  

  • The initiative seeks to reduce fragmentation and inefficiencies by promoting open, extensible data standards.  

  • OSI could accelerate AI innovation by enhancing collaboration, data portability, and cross-platform AI development.

Why this matters: Snowflake’s OSI initiative tackles the critical challenge of AI data fragmentation by fostering universal semantic data exchange standards, enhancing interoperability. This can speed up AI innovation, reduce workflow inefficiencies, and set a precedent for collaborative, open approaches in AI development, benefiting the broader tech ecosystem and users.

RELATIONAL DATABASE

TL;DR: PlanetScale Postgres now runs natively on Cloudflare Workers, providing globally consistent, low-latency, serverless databases that simplify deployment and scale seamlessly for real-time, edge-based applications.

  • PlanetScale Postgres now runs natively on Cloudflare Workers, combining Postgres reliability with edge network scalability.  

  • The integration offers serverless scaling, strong consistency, and supports distributed transactions globally.  

  • It simplifies deployment by leveraging Cloudflare’s security features and developer tools for edge applications.  

  • This innovation enhances low-latency access, benefiting real-time and interactive applications worldwide.

Why this matters: The native integration of PlanetScale Postgres with Cloudflare Workers revolutionizes global app development by combining reliable Postgres features with edge computing speed and scalability, reducing latency and infrastructure complexity. This advancement enables faster, consistent, and secure experiences critical for interactive, real-time applications worldwide.

DATA ENGINEERING

TL;DR: "Data as Code" applies software engineering practices to data engineering, improving pipeline reliability, collaboration, governance, and compliance, enabling scalable, efficient, and auditable data workflows for modern businesses.

  • "Data as Code" applies software engineering practices like version control and automated testing to data engineering workflows.  

  • Declarative configurations and infrastructure as code improve pipeline reproducibility, auditability, and maintenance in data projects.  

  • This approach boosts efficiency, reduces errors, and enhances governance by making data changes transparent and accountable.  

  • It fosters collaboration, accelerates innovation, and meets increasing regulatory demands through auditable, versioned data pipelines.

Why this matters: Adopting "Data as Code" transforms data engineering by improving pipeline reliability, transparency, and governance through software development practices. This shift accelerates innovation, fosters cross-functional collaboration, and ensures compliance, positioning organizations to better manage growing data complexity and scale operations securely and efficiently.

DATA LAKE ARCHITECTURE

TL;DR: AI data lakes centralize vast data for AI/ML, with top platforms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google offering scalable, secure, real-time, and cost-efficient solutions that accelerate innovation and digital transformation.

  • AI data lakes centralize vast structured and unstructured data, essential for advanced AI and machine learning workflows.  

  • Amazon Lake Formation, Microsoft Azure Data Lake, and Google Cloud Storage lead in scalable, secure AI data solutions.  

  • Key features include real-time processing, multi-format support, seamless integration, and cost efficiency among top data lakes.  

  • Choosing the right data lake optimizes AI workflows, boosts innovation, and accelerates digital transformation efforts.

Why this matters: AI data lakes are vital infrastructure that unify massive data for AI insights, enabling faster, smarter decision-making and innovation. Leading platforms’ scalable, secure features streamline AI workflows, making the right data lake choice critical for businesses striving to stay competitive and drive digital transformation in an AI-driven world.

EVERYTHING ELSE IN CLOUD DATABASES

DEEP DIVE
Snowflake World Tour 2025

This past Monday, I attended along with a whole bunch of my teammates, the 2025 edition of the Snowflake World Tour, at the Metro Toronto Convention Center in Toronto.

It was your standard, slickly produced vendor show. I tried to forgo all of the AI sessions, and focus on the things that will affect us as a team at my workplace. I attended about six sessions, plus the keynote. If any Snowflake folks are lurking here, thanks for the event after the conference. It was pretty good, in a great venue.

What I found most impressive from the sessions I attended was the “Managing Costs and Optimizing Performance in Snowflake” session. The gentleman who presented stated he started in IT at Oracle version 3. I was still riding my BMX bike back then. He is more of an old timer than me.

I was impressed with the granularity of the performance reporting that is intrinsic to Snowflake. I am pretty sure that I will have to delve into this aspect of Snowflake, and leave the exciting stuff like Cortex and Openflow to other people.

I don’t think this is proprietary, as I gleaned the list of sessions from the program, but here is an idea of the sessions that occurred on Monday:

AI & ML

  • AI & ML: Transforming Documents, Images and Audio in Snowflake Cortex AI

  • AI & ML: Deploy Accurate Conversational Apps in Cortex AI with AI Data Agents

  • AI & ML: Building Cortex Agents on Snowflake Why it Matters and Best Practices

  • AI & ML: Snowflake Cortex AI's Agents & Enterprise Intelligence Capabilities

Best Practices

  • Best Practices: Legacy to Snowflake - How to Avoid Failing Your Data Warehouse Migration

  • Best Practices: Scaling End-to-End ML Workloads in Snowflake

  • Best Practices: End-to-End Data Engineering with Python in Snowflake

  • Best Practices: AI Governance and Security in Snowflake

  • Best Practices: How to Get >90% Text-SQL Accuracy with Cortex Analyst Semantic Models

  • Best Practices: Cost Management in Snowflake

Business

  • Business: Maximizing Business Value with the Snowflake AI Data Cloud

Hands-on Lab

  • Hands-on Lab: End-to-End Migration to Snowflake in Action: Data and Pipelines

  • Hands-on Lab: Building Agentic Applications in Snowflake

  • Hands-on Lab: Unlock Insights from Unstructured Data with Snowflake Cortex AI

Industries

  • Industries: The Future of Financial Services - Architecting for Data & AI ROI with Snowflake

  • Industries: The Future of Retail and Consumer Goods

  • Industries: The Future of Public Sector

Partner Session

  • Partner Session: Wealth Management: Building Impactful Data Products, and Enabling AI Platform Readiness

  • Partner Session: Unlocking Value at Scale: Lessons Learned from a Large-Scale Snowflake Implementation

Tech Deep Dive

  • Tech Deep Dive: Architecting SaaS for Scale: Why and How to Build on Snowflake

  • Tech Deep Dive: Databricks to Snowflake - Migration Tools, Tips and Deep Dive

  • Tech Deep Dive: Snowflake Openflow

  • Tech Deep Dive: Data Engineering on Apache Iceberg™ Data Lakes

  • Tech Deep Dive: Real-Time Insights at Scale - OLTP Database CDC Streaming with Snowflake

  • Tech Deep Dive: Unlocking Data Engineering Insights - Observability with Snowflake Trail

What's New

  • What's New: Revolutionizing Data Movement with Snowflake Openflow

  • What's New: Advanced Analytics With Cortex AISQL, Native Semantic Views, And More

  • What's New: Accelerating Data Warehouse Migrations to Snowflake

  • What's New: Managing Costs and Optimizing Performance in Snowflake

  • What's New: No-Code Agentic Data Analytics Platform

  • What's New: Governance and Security for Data and AI with Horizon Catalog

  • What's New: Scaling Data Pipelines With SQL, dbt Projects and Python

  • What's New: Why You Should Migrate Your ML Pipelines to Snowflake ML

When you have some time, please read my technology report on the Snowflake World Tour 2025 Toronto, held last Monday.

 

Gladstone Benjamin