Empowering Data-Enabled Bharat with Snowflake AI Data Cloud

Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, underscored its commitment to transforming the Indian enterprise landscape at the Snowflake World Tour in Delhi on August 30, 2024. The keynote address, delivered by Sanjay Deshmukh, Senior Regional Vice President of ASEAN and India, and Vijayant Rai, Managing Director of Snowflake India, provided insights into the intersection of data and AI. The event highlighted the company's mission to equip businesses across India with advanced data strategies and AI capabilities. Key messages focused on Snowflake's role in the Era of Enterprise AI, emphasizing the importance of simplifying complexity and enhancing cost-efficiency. Snowflake aimed to offer a unified platform that could provide a complete solution, reflecting the philosophy of delivering "the car, not the parts." This approach was intended to ensure that Snowflake's AI Data Cloud could illuminate every aspect of the enterprise, beyond just IT.

Vijayant Rai's address highlighted the essential role of data in successful AI implementations, asserting that "there is no AI strategy without a data strategy." He discussed Snowflake's efforts to create a "Data-Enabled Bharat" across key sectors, including BFSI, aviation, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, CPG, logistics, and pharmaceuticals. Rai shared success stories from leading Indian companies, such as Urban Company, which reported a tenfold improvement in operational efficiency through its collaboration with Snowflake; Swiggy, which experienced a 3.7x increase in daily queries, 20% faster processing, and a 1.8x reduction in costs; and Shiprocket, which saw a significant reduction in data processing time, enabling faster access to data and quicker decision-making.

Sanjay Deshmukh emphasized Snowflake's mission to deliver the most efficient data and AI platform available. He noted that the AI Data Cloud globally supported over 10,000 customers and more than 10,000 partners, who utilized it to deliver industry solutions. Deshmukh also highlighted the platform's massive scale, handling over 5 billion jobs daily with thousands of stable edges between customers. Snowflake's continuous investment in security and governance improvements was also a key point, with innovations such as Snowflake Horizon, a governance solution. Deshmukh outlined two main aspects of Snowflake’s AI capabilities: an AI-powered Data Platform that intelligently ingested, governed, and optimized data workflows, and a Data-powered AI platform that enabled the development of advanced AI products using enterprise data.

Snowflake's commitment to being "Data Complete" continued with its advancements in GenAI and its fully managed AI service, Cortex AI. This service was designed to integrate seamlessly with Snowflake’s platform, facilitating the development of AI applications with the necessary security, trust, and governance. Additionally, Snowflake introduced Polaris Catalog, an open-source catalog for Iceberg data, which could be used across AWS, GCP, or Azure, allowing customers to use multiple engines on the same copy of data without being locked into a single catalog. Examples of enterprises using Snowflake to enhance productivity and customer experiences through AI-driven applications included Bayer, Zoom, and Sigma.

A notable moment of the event was the recognition of Sunil Kumar, CTO at Shiprocket, who received the Snowflake Data Driver Award as the Data Executive of the Year for his leadership and innovation in leveraging data to drive business success. Rai concluded the event by emphasizing the growing convergence of data and AI, stating that Snowflake was dedicated to making data work for enterprises by providing easy, efficient, and trusted Enterprise AI solutions.