At its fifth-annual Summit conference, Snowflake introduced new advancements that help customers leverage generative AI and develop scalable applications while ensuring data security and governance within the Data Cloud.
“Mobilizing data is a business imperative, and Snowflake Summit 2023 showed us just how powerful organizations are when they embrace their data to build game-changing innovations in the Data Cloud. At this year’s event, we brought together some of the world’s leading data and AI experts to learn, share, and explore new ways to propel their industries forward, and I’m excited to see how we continue to push these boundaries as we return to San Francisco for Snowflake Summit 2024,” said Denise Persson, Chief Marketing Officer at Snowflake.
The Snowflake Summit highlighted the significant impact of AI, large language models (LLMs), and GPU-accelerated computing on various industries and business models. At the event, Snowflake unveiled expanded capabilities and product innovations that drive advancements within the Data Cloud.
New product innovations
Snowflake has introduced Snowpark Container Services, currently in private preview, which allows developers to deploy, manage, and scale various applications, including generative AI and full-stack apps, within the Snowflake platform. It offers configurable infrastructure options, including GPUs, ensuring secure operations within the Snowflake ecosystem. Moreover, Snowflake customers gain access to a wide range of third-party services, such as large language models (LLMs), notebooks, and MLOps tools, all conveniently accessible within their Snowflake accounts.
Additionally, Document AI is a newly developed large language model (LLM) currently in private preview. This LLM was created through the acquisition of Applica, an innovative generative AI technology company. Document AI aims to assist Snowflake customers in comprehending documents and extracting valuable insights from unstructured data, all without requiring expertise in machine learning.
Snowflake is also introducing Iceberg Tables, which will soon be available in private preview, and which allow organizations to work with data stored in the Apache Iceberg format, regardless of whether the data is managed within Snowflake or externally. Users can leverage the convenience, performance, and unified governance capabilities of Snowflake while accessing and manipulating data stored in their own storage using the Iceberg format.
To provide increased transparency, Snowflake has introduced the Snowflake Performance Index (SPI). This index showcases the ongoing performance enhancements by revealing that query duration for stable customer workloads has improved by 15% in the past eight months, based on Snowflake's tracking.
Moreover, the Snowflake Native App Framework, which is now in public preview on AWS, enables developers to create and test Snowflake Native Apps. Additionally, Snowflake Marketplace offers more than 25 new Snowflake Native Apps that customers can install and utilize with their Snowflake account to analyze and work with their data.
Snowflake has introduced several new capabilities aimed at enhancing the developer experience and expanding streaming capabilities. These include Snowpark ML APIs, which are currently in public preview, allowing for more efficient model development. The Snowpark Model Registry, currently in private preview, offers scalable MLOps functionality. Advancements in Streamlit in Snowflake, set for public preview in the near future, enable the transformation of models into interactive applications.
During the summit, Snowflake's partner ecosystem made over 100 announcements, showcasing how organizations are utilizing the Data Cloud to drive industry transformation through collaborative solutions, AI and ML strategies, innovative data applications, and more. Snowflake also reported remarkable growth, with over 970 partners building Powered by Snowflake applications and over 430 partners listed on the Snowflake Marketplace as of April 30, 2023. Merkle and Braze are among the companies that have become available on the Snowflake marketplace.
