Making it snow in San Francisco in June!

The Data Cloud Summit 2024 was an unparalleled gathering for data enthusiasts, AI innovators, and business leaders from around the globe. Over four dynamic days, the conference offered more than 400 sessions exploring the latest trends and technologies in data and AI. Attendees engaged in hands-on labs, acquired new skills through comprehensive training programs, and earned valuable certifications.

Our Principal Consultant, Martin Kjær Dideriksen, has gathered some of his favorite highlights from this year’s conference below:

Cortex AI & ML Studio (Cortex Playground)

This offers a no-code interface that simplifies AI application development. This platform enables enterprises to leverage large language models (LLMs) from leading providers like Google, Meta, and Mistral. Thanks to the serverless architecture, users can customize AI solutions without the need for extensive coding knowledge with Cortex Fine-Tuning.

Snowflake Trail

Snowflake Trail simplifies telemetry by eliminating the need for agent installation and setup. It offers instant insights into Snowpark code performance and resource usage within Snowflake. Through Snowsight, it provides metrics, logs, and span events for quick issue resolution without additional data transfer. Snowflake Trail is built on OpenTelemetry standards and integrates with tools like Datadog, Grafana, and Slack for seamless monitoring and tracing.

Developer Tool Updates

Snowflake has introduced public previews for numerous developer tools, including the AI Data Cloud with integrated Snowflake Notebooks. Snowflake Notebooks provide a unified development interface for Python, SQL, and Markdown, allowing for experimentation with ML pipelines, AI-powered editing, and streamlined data engineering.

They have also launched the public preview of Snowpark pandas API, enabling Python developers to use pandas syntax for AI and pipeline development. Furthermore, they have introduced a database change management feature and Git integration in public preview. Snowflake’s Python API and open-source CLI, which support CI/CD practices, are expected to be generally available soon.

Horizon

The Internal Marketplace enables secure collaboration with curated data products. AI-powered Object Descriptions generate relevant descriptions for tables and views.

The Sensitive Data Classification Interface simplifies data classification with auto-tagging and auto-classification. Universal Search uses AI for natural language searches across various data types and sources. The Trust Center, offers centralized monitoring for security and compliance risks across clouds, and will be generally available soon. Synthetic Data Generation creates row-level reproductions of sensitive data for testing and development in a private preview.

These features improve collaboration, security, and operational efficiency through automated tools and AI-driven insights. Snowflake Horizon offers seamless integration, enhanced security and compliance, and boosts productivity through streamlined collaboration and data governance.

Native Apps with Snowpark Container Services

You can now seamlessly run any containerized service supported by Snowpark Container Services within a Snowflake Native App. Snowflake Native Apps with Snowpark Container Services harness the full potential of the Snowflake Native App Framework, with robust features including provider IP protection, security and governance, seamless data sharing, monetization capabilities, and seamless integration with compute resources.