TL;DR:
- Databricks is experiencing strong data lakehouse adoption in India.
- The company plans to increase its local headcount by over 50% this year, adding new roles to its team of over 250 to support business growth and drive customer success.
- Databricks is launching a new R&D hub in Bengaluru later this year to further strengthen its position in India’s data and AI space.
- The company is experiencing a 90% YoY growth in the Asia Pacific region.
- Databricks recently unveiled Dolly 2.0, an open-source, instruction-following large language model (LLM), at its Data + AI World Tour in Bengaluru.
- Databricks is open-sourcing the entirety of Dolly 2.0, including the training code, the dataset, and the model weights.
- The company’s focus on empowering organizations to create, own, and customize powerful LLMs highlights its commitment to democratizing access to data and AI technologies.
- Anil Bhasin has been appointed as the Country Manager for India to help drive further lakehouse adoption across the country.
- Databricks is poised to help accelerate India’s transformation to become the most data-driven economy by transforming enterprises to become more data-forward.
Main AI News:
Databricks, the trailblazer in data and AI, has been experiencing phenomenal growth across the Asia Pacific region, particularly in India, where it is seeing strong adoption of its data lakehouse. In line with this success, the company has announced plans to increase its local headcount by over 50% this year, adding new roles, such as technical specialists, sales and support engineers, and go-to-market resources, to help drive customer success and support business growth.
The company’s focus on India is set to be further cemented with the launch of a new R&D hub in Bengaluru in 2023. This center of innovation and collaboration will strengthen Databricks’ position as a leading player in the data and AI space in India. The new hub will allow the company to tap into the wealth of technical talent in the region while also providing a center for the development of cutting-edge data and AI technologies.
Data and AI experts gathered recently at Databricks’ Data + AI World Tour in Bengaluru to share best practices and discuss the company’s latest product innovations. Among these groundbreaking innovations was the introduction of Dolly 2.0, an open-source, instruction-following large language model (LLM) based on the EleutherAI Pythia model family. Dolly 2.0, a 12B parameter language model, was fine-tuned on a human-generated instruction dataset licensed for research and commercial use. Databricks is open-sourcing the entirety of Dolly 2.0, including the training code, the dataset, and the model weights.
Databricks’ commitment to democratizing access to data and AI technologies is demonstrated by their focus on empowering organizations to create, own, and customize powerful LLMs that can talk to people without paying for API access or sharing data with third parties. This commitment is part of the company’s wider mission to enable data-driven transformation for businesses and organizations of all sizes.
In line with its mission, Databricks has recently appointed Anil Bhasin as the Country Manager for India to help drive further lakehouse adoption across the country. Bhasin, a tech industry veteran with over 30 years of experience, joined Databricks from UiPath, where he served as the Managing Director and VP of the company’s India and South Asia business. He was also previously the Regional Vice President for Palo Alto Networks. With Bhasin at the helm, Databricks is poised to help accelerate India’s transformation to become the most data-driven economy by transforming enterprises to become more data-forward.
Overall, Databricks’ growth plans in India reflect the company’s strong commitment to the region and its belief in the transformative power of data and AI. By increasing its local headcount, launching a new R&D hub, and developing innovative products like Dolly 2.0, Databricks is helping to build a more data-driven future for India and beyond.
Conlcusion:
Databricks’ ambitious plans for India are a significant indicator of the growing demand for data and AI technologies in the region. The company’s strong focus on India, with the launch of a new R&D hub and the appointment of a new Country Manager, reflects the growing trend of businesses looking to leverage the transformative power of data-driven insights to gain a competitive edge.
As Databricks continues to develop innovative products like Dolly 2.0 and democratize access to data and AI technologies, it is clear that the market for these technologies in India and beyond will only continue to grow. As such, businesses that embrace data-driven transformation now will be best positioned to thrive in the future.
