Dusseldorf The US software group Databricks helps companies to analyze gigantic amounts of data in the cloud. In the new episode of Handelsblatt Disrupt, CEO Ali Ghodsi talks to Silicon Valley correspondent Stephan Scheuer about the data business, artificial intelligence and the company’s expansion plans.
“In ten years, every company will be an AI company,” says Ghodsi. Because almost all companies collected data. Siemens and Thyssen-Krupp, for example, have sensors attached to their devices that collect information and forward it to a central location for storage and management, he says. There, for example, machine learning could be used to determine the risk of machine failure or the purchasing behavior of customers.
The conversation goes well beyond the cloud company’s business model. Ghodsi explains how he wants to hold his own against the big tech companies Amazon, Microsoft and Google, why he is expanding his European business and what advantages US universities offer.
Ghodsi was born in Iran, grew up in Sweden and received his doctorate there. After a short period of research and the founding of a Swedish data transfer company, he received a scholarship from the University of Berkeley.
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The advantage of the US university is its proximity to industry in Silicon Valley, he says. The interaction between the private sector and academic research, particularly at Stanford University and Berkeley, creates “a very fertile environment in which you can focus on research problems that are very close to practice,” he says.
For a software company, Europe is attractive because of its strict data protection requirements. Databricks is currently developing a research and development center in Berlin. “We will invest tenfold this year,” says Ghodsi. Above all, he wants to expand the engineering team.
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More: The previous episode of Handelsblatt Disrupt can be found here.