Databricks announces Lakehouse Apps and expands Marketplace with AI models and data providers
Databricks announces Lakehouse Apps and expands Marketplace with AI models and data providers
Data and AI company Databricks announces the new Lakehouse Apps, which allows developers to develop secure and native Databricks applications. It is also expanding the Marketplace's offerings to include new data vendors and opportunities to share AI models. The Databricks Marketplace will be made generally available during the annual Data + AI Summit.
Simplified access to data and AI with maximum security as well as functionality
Lakehouse Apps are secure and flexible solutions that give customers access to a range of innovative new data and AI applications, without compromising security or privacy. Lakehouse Apps are built on Databricks-native services and can be easily integrated with a customer's data through a single sign-on process. This reduces the time and effort required to deploy, integrate and manage data and AI applications.
Lakehouse Apps developers can use the technology and language of their choice and easily distribute their apps through the Databricks Marketplace. Moreover, Lakehouse Apps adopt Databricks' security, privacy and compliance measures, providing organisations with security and efficiency that does not come at the expense of functionality.
Some of the initial development partners for Lakehouse Apps include Retool, Posit, Kumo.ai and Lamini:
Retool enables customers to quickly build and deploy internal apps based on their data. Developers can create a UI with drag-and-drop building blocks such as tables and forms, and write queries for data interaction using SQL and JavaScript.
Posit is an open-source data science company that provides data scientists with advanced tools for code-driven data science.
Kumo.ai is an AI platform that addresses business challenges around an organisation's predictive capability. The platform works directly with relational data using graphical neural networks, a type of AI system for processing data that can be represented as a series of graphs.
Lamini is an LLM platform that allows any developer to build custom, proprietary models that are simpler, faster and perform better than any general LLM.
New data providers and options to share AI models
Through the Databricks Marketplace, vendors can make (paid) AI models available, which all Databricks users can integrate into their data solutions. Databricks itself will publish a curated collection of open source models for common use cases, such as summarising text. These models will also be further optimised by Databricks.
Finally, new data providers are joining the Databricks Marketplace, including leading financial services companies such as S&P Global, Experian, London Stock Exchange Group, Nasdaq, Corelogic and YipitData; healthcare innovators such as Datavant and IQVIA; geomatics leaders such as Divirod, Accuweather and Safegraph; data-enhanced collaboration companies such as LiveRamp; and business information service providers such as LexisNexis and ZoomInfo.
"With Lakehouse Apps, software vendors can bring their feature-rich, secure apps into the lakehouse, which is great for both Databricks customers and vendors, removing a lot of friction for both," said Matei Zaharia, co-founder and CTO at Databricks. "In addition, the expansion of the Databricks Marketplace to include AI models and apps addresses a critical need in today's business world, as enterprise collaboration evolves from mere exchange of datasets to secure computing and AI modelling on shared data."
Availability
Databricks Marketplace will become generally available (GA) on 28 June 2023, following a public preview period. Lakehouse Apps and AI model sharing in the Databricks Marketplace are expected to become available in preview in the coming year.
