SoftBank and Databricks partner to provide AI data infrastructure

SoftBank Corp. and Databricks Inc., a US-based investment company of SoftBank Vision Fund 2, will begin offering “Data Advisory Services”, which will support corporate management centered on data and AI, utilizing Databricks’ AI (artificial intelligence) data infrastructure, the “Data Intelligence Platform.”

SoftBank will not only provide Japanese companies with an AI data infrastructure, but will also offer “Data Advisory Services,” which are upstream consulting services such as defining requirements, formulating governance, and building systems to enable the use of in-house data. By using the “Data Advisory Services,” companies can receive comprehensive support from implementation preparation to an integrated data utilization strategy. This allows sales data and customer information to be analyzed and visualized in real time, enabling data-based decision-making. This data can also be used for customer behavior analysis and marketing measures based on market trends  .

Databricks’ “Data Intelligence Platform” is an AI data infrastructure that supports decision-making by combining customer data with powerful AI models optimized for various business characteristics. SoftBank will use this platform to provide one-stop support from environment creation to overall utilization, building a system that allows smooth data collection to AI utilization on a single platform, contributing to the realization of corporate management that utilizes data and AI. This will enable companies to make data-based decisions quickly, further strengthening their competitiveness.

Also Read: Panasonic HD Debuts OmniFlow for AI Media Conversion

While the utilization of AI and data has become an important management theme, companies face the issue of data being managed separately by department or purpose, and not being able to use it effectively. Databricks‘ “Data Intelligence Platform” is a data infrastructure that integrates a data lake that stores unstructured data and a data warehouse that stores structured data  into a single platform, enabling companies to accumulate and manage all kinds of data on a single platform. It also enables rapid real-time analysis of large-scale data, advanced data analysis using an AI development platform, and the construction of AI models.

SoftBank introduced Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform in 2020 to integrate all cross-departmental data, including financial information, human resources information, and base station information. The company also links the integrated data with other tools to analyze it and use it for management decision-making and marketing purposes.  From the perspective of data governance, data that requires an extremely high level of security, such as personal information, is properly managed and operated on this platform.

SoftBank will provide “Data Advisory Services” based on its experience in building its own data utilization environment to help companies effectively utilize data and AI. SoftBank will also promote collaboration with big data owned by SoftBank Group companies such as LINE Yahoo Japan Corporation , and in the future, it is looking to collaborate with OpenAI and Cristal Intelligence, a cutting-edge enterprise AI that the SoftBank Group has agreed to develop and sell  . In this way, collaboration with external services will further promote the use of data and AI by companies, including implementing more advanced marketing and improving business efficiency.

SoftBank Corp. Executive Managing Director Hayato Sakurai said, “We are very pleased to have formed a strong partnership with Databricks. By utilizing Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform, companies can make the most of their data and strengthen their competitiveness. Through this partnership, SoftBank will support AX ^*9 and DX for Japanese companies. Furthermore, in the future, we will also work hard to provide AI agents.”

Toshifumi Sasa, president and CEO of Databricks Japan, Databricks’ Japanese subsidiary, said, “We are very pleased to deepen our partnership with SoftBank and begin offering data advisory services that utilize Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform to support the management of Japanese companies with an AI data infrastructure at the core. We hope that through this initiative, even more Japanese companies will be able to build specialized AI, or data intelligence, to solve business-specific problems based on their own unique data, and create even more business value.”

SOURCE: Softbank