At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) and tools like generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) have exploded in popularity, getting the most out of organizational data is critical to driving business value and carving out a competitive market advantage. To reach that goal, more businesses are turning toward hybrid cloud infrastructure – with data on-premises, in the cloud, or both – as a means to tap into valuable data.

Hadoop. The first time that I really became familiar with this term was at Hadoop World in New York City some ten or so years ago. There were thousands of attendees at the event – lining up for book signings and meetings with recruiters to fill the endless job openings for developers experienced with MapReduce and managing Big Data. This was the gold rush of the 21st century, except the gold was data.

Of all of the emerging tech of the last two decades, artificial intelligence (AI) is tipping the hype scale, causing organizations from all industries to rethink their digital transformation initiatives asking where it fits in. In Financial Services, the projected numbers are staggering. According to a recent McKinsey & Co.

More than two-thirds of companies are currently using Generative AI (GenAI) models, such as large language models (LLMs), which can understand and generate human-like text, images, video, music, and even code. However, the true power of these models lies in their ability to adapt to an enterprise’s unique context. By leveraging an organization’s proprietary data, GenAI models can produce highly relevant and customized outputs that align with the business’s specific needs and objectives.

A constant flow of breaking news from the data lakehouse space is making notable tech headlines this week. On Tuesday, Databricks announced that it will acquire Tabular, a data management company founded by the creators of Apache Iceberg, Ryan Blue, Daniel Weeks, and Jason Reidfor. The deal was for an unconfirmed sum, but some reports suggest that amount to be between $1B and $2B (and allegedly outbidding Snowflake).

Recently, Cloudera, alongside OCBC, were named winners in the“Best Big Data and Analytics Infrastructure Implementation” category at The Asian Banker’s Financial Technology Innovation Awards 2024. This recognition underscores the importance of trusted data when building AI and generative AI (GenAI) models and serves as a testament to the impact that reliable data can have in real world use cases.

It’s not a surprise that in today’s challenging economic landscape, rising costs pose a significant threat to the telecommunications industry. Consider that in 2022, Bain Capital was predicting that Telcos would grapple with increased personnel and escalating operating costs due to inflation. And here we are.

We are excited to announce a tech preview of Cloudera AI Inference service powered by the full-stack NVIDIA accelerated computing platform, which includes NVIDIA NIM inference microservices, part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform for generative AI. Cloudera’s AI Inference service uniquely streamlines the deployment and management of large-scale AI models, delivering high performance and efficiency while maintaining strict privacy and security standards.

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping enterprises across the globe—be it in healthcare, finance, or manufacturing—it’s hard to overstate the transformation that AI has had on businesses, regardless of industry or size. At Cloudera, we recognize the urgent need for bold steps to harness this potential and dramatically accelerate the time to value for AI applications.

Cloudera customers run some of the biggest data lakes on earth. These lakes power mission-critical, large-scale data analytics and AI use cases—including enterprise data warehouses. Nearly two years ago, Cloudera announced the general availability of Apache Iceberg in the Cloudera platform, which helps users avoid vendor lock-in and implement an open lakehouse. With an open data lakehouse powered by Apache Iceberg, businesses can better tap into the power of analytics and AI.