As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, so does the need for robust data governance and open-source solutions. Databricks has been at the forefront of this movement, developing cutting-edge tools that enable organizations to leverage AI effectively while maintaining strong data governance practices. Ivo Everts, Senior Solutions Architect at Databricks, shares insights on how open-source AI and improved data governance are shaping the future of AI-powered solutions.
The DBRX Model: Leading the Way in Open-Source AI
One of Databricks’ most significant contributions is the DBRX model, which has set a new standard for large language models (LLMs) in the open-source space. According to Everts, DBRX outperforms other leading models, such as Llama2-70B, offering up to 2x faster inference and delivering superior results across a variety of benchmarks, including language understanding, programming, and mathematics.
The goal of DBRX is to democratize the training of custom LLMs, making it accessible to more organizations while keeping costs manageable. By offering an open-source model, Databricks empowers businesses to train high-performance LLMs on their own data, further reducing dependency on a select few AI providers.
Open-Sourcing Unity Catalog for Enhanced Data Governance
In addition to its contributions to AI, Databricks has also made strides in data governance by open-sourcing Unity Catalog. This tool addresses challenges like data sprawl and inconsistent access controls, which often plague enterprises managing data across multiple environments.
Key features of Unity Catalog include:
- Centralized Data Access Management: Unity Catalog allows organizations to manage access controls for all data assets in a unified manner, simplifying governance across platforms.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): This feature ensures that user permissions are based on defined roles, enhancing security and simplifying access management.
- Data Lineage and Auditing: By tracking data usage and changes, Unity Catalog helps organizations ensure compliance with security policies and maintain a clear audit trail.
- Cross-Cloud and Hybrid Support: Unity Catalog can manage data governance across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, ensuring consistent policies regardless of where the data is stored.
Databricks AI/BI: Revolutionizing Business Intelligence with AI
Databricks has also introduced Databricks AI/BI, a business intelligence platform that leverages generative AI for enhanced data exploration and visualization. This platform includes two key components:
- Dashboards: A low-code interface that allows users to create interactive dashboards with minimal effort. These dashboards support standard BI features like visualizations and cross-filtering.
- Genie: A conversational AI tool designed for answering ad-hoc questions in natural language. Genie continuously learns from user interactions, offering suggestions and generating adaptive visualizations to improve the data analysis process.
By combining these features, Databricks AI/BI provides a comprehensive solution for self-service data analysis, enabling business users to derive insights from their data without requiring extensive technical expertise.
Mosaic AI: A Platform for Building and Managing AI Applications
Another notable innovation is Mosaic AI, Databricks’ platform for building and deploying machine learning and generative AI applications. Mosaic AI integrates enterprise data to provide enhanced performance, scalability, and governance for AI solutions. Some key components of Mosaic AI include:
- Unified Tooling: This suite of tools supports the entire AI lifecycle, from model development to deployment and governance.
- Generative AI Patterns: These patterns include features like prompt engineering and retrieval augmented generation (RAG), enabling flexibility as business needs evolve.
- Centralized Model Management: Mosaic AI’s model serving capability allows organizations to deploy and manage both custom and foundation models, ensuring they meet performance and governance requirements.
- Monitoring and Governance: Features like Lakehouse Monitoring and Unity Catalog ensure comprehensive tracking and governance across the AI lifecycle.
The Future of Open-Source AI and Data Governance
At the core of these innovations is Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform, which transforms data management by combining the capabilities of data lakes and warehouses into a unified architecture. This platform supports real-time data processing through Delta Lake technology and enables secure data sharing with Delta Sharing.
Everts emphasizes that the future of AI lies in open-source solutions and strong data governance. By developing tools like DBRX, Unity Catalog, and Mosaic AI, Databricks is enabling organizations to build AI applications that are not only powerful but also secure, cost-effective, and scalable.
Conclusion
Databricks is leading the charge in the open-source AI and data governance landscape, providing businesses with the tools they need to build, manage, and govern AI applications effectively. From the groundbreaking DBRX model to the versatile Unity Catalog and Mosaic AI, Databricks offers a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of enterprises in the age of AI.
By democratizing access to powerful AI tools and improving data governance practices, Databricks is helping to shape the future of AI and data management across industries.
Sources: https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/ivo-everts-databricks-open-source-ai-improving-data-governance/, https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/what-is-artificial-intelligence-ai
