Databricks doubles down on investment in India

Databricks has experienced over 80% annualized growth in the past two fiscal years for its India business, driven by an increase in demand for data and AI capabilities across Indian enterprises. The company also announced the launch and availability of Databricks infrastructure on Google Cloud’s India (Mumbai) region to support the growing customer base and demand for the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform. These investments, in addition to the launch of its R&D hub in Bangalore last year, further Databricks’ commitment to India.

Globally, Databricks reached over US$1.6 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ending January 31, representing over 50% year-on-year growth, driven by rapid product innovation. Databricks also completed a series of acquisitions in its most recent fiscal year, including MosaicML, Arcion, Okera, Einblick, and Rubicon. These acquisitions, as well as Databricks’ recently-announced investment and Series A funding of Mistral AI, have positioned the company as the platform to help enterprises take advantage of generative AI – securely and with their own proprietary data.

“Over the past two years, we have witnessed an increase in the demand for data and AI solutions across India from all industries, including FSI, retail, manufacturing, and digital natives. This remarkable momentum not only highlights the enterprise AI boom in India but also reinforces our commitment to empowering local businesses with data and AI capabilities,” said Anil Bhasin, Vice President, and Country Manager for Databricks India.

“India is a key market for us and we’re pleased that so many of its leading enterprises and tech-driven startups have chosen Databricks to support their data and AI journey. To meet this growing demand, we’re doubling down on our investments in India, most recently with our launch of Databricks infrastructure on Google Cloud and the expansion of both our Indian go-to-market and R&D teams. We look forward to helping even more Indian customers use AI securely, with their own data, on our Data Intelligence Platform,” said Ed Lenta, SVP and General Manager for Databricks in Asia Pacific and Japan.

Innovative Indian Customers Adopt the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform

Data-forward companies including Air India, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd., CommerceIQ, Freshworks, InMobi, Meesho, Myntra, Parle, UPL, and many others are leveraging the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to optimize business operations, drive innovation through predictive analytics and AI applications, and enhance decision-making. Built on a lakehouse architecture, the Databricks platform provides an open, unified foundation for all data and governance, and is powered by a data intelligence engine that understands the uniqueness of each enterprise’s data.

“We have embarked on our digital transformation journey and by setting up a center of excellence for digital and analytics at UPL, we aim to maximize the utilization and monetization of data across various business functions globally. The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform is the foundation of our data and AI strategy, driving business-critical use cases including demand forecast, commercial analytics, customer 360, and many others. Moving forward, we are excited to partner with Databricks closely to co-innovate on various AI use cases to continually transform our business,” said Vijay Balakrishnan, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UPL Group.

“We’re excited to be at the forefront of building foundational LLMs trained on Indian languages to better serve our customers in India. We have been working very closely with the Databricks team to pre-train and finetune our foundational LLM. We are confident that Krutrim, our base model, will be able to provide high-quality responses in Indian languages as well as dialects,” said Ravi Jain, Vice President, Krutrim (a part of Ola Group).

“As India’s premier and largest fashion e-commerce platform, Myntra faced the challenge of managing vast amounts of data, with several terabytes being added daily. To address this, we migrated to the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, and this has significantly improved our ability to scale data ingestion and reduce operational costs. Additionally, the Databricks Platform has accelerated real-time data processing, enabling us to enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of our platform. By leveraging Databricks, Myntra is further democratizing e-commerce, making fashion accessible to everyone across India and reinforcing our position as the nation’s leading fashion destination,” said Ajay Sharma, Vice President for Platform Services, Myntra.

Data Intelligence Day Kicks Off In India

Databricks kicked off its Data Intelligence Days in India today in Bangalore, a flagship event that brought together the brightest minds in data and AI from across the country. Through a series of deep-dive sessions led by Databricks customers, industry leaders, technical experts, and partners, participants discovered innovative ways to unlock data insights using natural language and develop GenAI applications while maintaining data privacy and control.

The Mumbai stop will be happening on 10 May and registrations will open next month.

Databricks also recognized and celebrated outstanding data and AI teams and individuals at the Databricks India Data + AI Awards 2024. Congratulations to all winners:

Data + AI Disruptive Innovation Award: celebrates the team that is shaking up the status quo and leading the market by using data and AI to implement cutting-edge products and services.

Winner: CommerceIQ    

Data + AI Democratization Award: celebrates the team that is driving the center of excellence, delivering data into the hands of empowered users across the organization — making every team a data team.

Winner: Myntra

Data + AI Transformation Award: celebrates the team that is delivering new use cases, innovative outcomes and increased value while democratizing access to data and insights.

Winner: PocketFM

Data + AI Visionary Award: celebrates the forward-thinking team that is transforming their organization by turning data and AI innovations into business outcomes that inspire their industry.

Winner: HDFC

Data + AI for Good Award: celebrates the team that is making a positive impact in the world by using data and AI to deliver solutions to global challenges.

Winner: Air India

Data Intelligence Award: celebrates the team that is using the power of a data intelligence platform to democratize data and AI at scale with secure access and greater transparency.

Winner: Freshworks

GenAI Innovation Award: celebrates the data and research team using generative AI to transform their products, processes and tools — delivering innovation across industries.

Winner: Krutrim, a part Ola Group

Databricks remains committed to driving the data and AI transformation in India, enabling more businesses to become data-forward and unlocking new opportunities for growth and innovation.