Shaking Up the AI Sphere
RelationalAI, a little startup that’s been quietly making waves in the AI sphere out of Berkeley, California, is about to shake things up. Today, they’ve got something they’re calling an AI “coprocessor” that’s designed to slide into place right alongside Snowflake, the cloud data warehouse provider that’s been gathering momentum. And they’ve been so confident about this nifty device that they’ve announced it at the Snowflake Summit 2023, a gathering of tech enthusiasts that’s something like the annual Christmas for the data management crowd.
Breaking It Down
Now, let me break this down for you. What this move means is that Snowflake is trying to morph into a one-stop-shop for all things AI in the enterprise, while RelationalAI is aiming to create a harmonious approach to building smart applications. So, what are they actually doing? Well, they’re bringing the support for those workloads right into Snowflake. That’s according to Molham Aref, the big boss of RelationalAI, who spilled the beans to VentureBeat.
But why does this matter? Well, think about it like this: a knowledge graph makes it easier for us humans to understand what’s going on with the data. It’s like a handy translator, bridging the gap between data and understanding. And it turns out, it does the same for a language model.
How Does It All Work?
Well, this so-called coprocessor lets the customers of Snowflake run knowledge graphs, prescriptive analytics, and rules engines right there within the Snowflake environment. That means there’s no need to shuttle data around to separate systems for those features. So if you’re looking to build fraud detection, supply chain optimization, or other AI-driven applications, you can do it all within Snowflake.
And it’s not just a pipe dream. It’s been proven. RelationalAI’s AI coprocessor can be run securely in the Data Cloud with Snowpark Container Services, a shiny new feature that Snowflake announced at this year’s summit. This allows customers to run third-party software and applications within their Snowflake account, making their data even more valuable without risking its security.
And guess what? It’s already catching on. There’s impressive early adoption across several industries including financial services, retail, and telecommunications.
The Future of Computing
Well, Aref has a vision. He sees the future of computing being shaped by the combination of language models, data clouds, and relational knowledge graphs. He believes they’re going to be at the core of every platform for building decision intelligence in the enterprise.
And, in his opinion, knowledge graphs are central to making it all work because they provide a simplifying abstraction that makes it possible for things to talk to each other. So, in other words, it gives us a common language to talk to each other with.
RelationalAI: The Backstory
RelationalAI is one of the few startups that are tackling the challenge of building intelligent applications with composite AI workloads. The company was founded in 2017 by Aref, who has a background in AI, databases, and enterprise software. The company has raised $122 million in funding from investors such as Addition, Madrona Venture Group, Menlo Ventures, Tiger Global and former Snowflake CEO Bob Muglia.
Praise from a Board Member
Also a board member at RelationalAI, Muglia had some glowing words for the company’s technology and vision. According to him, the emergence of language models has completely changed the computing landscape. And he believes that the marriage of language models, cloud platforms## Praise from a Board Member (continued)
and relational knowledge graphs is not only transformative but also key to defining the future of computing. This combination, he suggests, will unlock powerful capabilities and give organizations new superpowers.
