Overview
- Databricks and Microsoft announced on Wednesday that they have extended their strategic partnership into the 2030s and formalized new operational and product commitments.
- Databricks will move more of its own core business operations and analytics onto Azure Databricks and use the platform to build its unified lakehouse.
- The company will increase use of Microsoft’s Arm-based Azure Cobalt servers and plans to adopt Cobalt 200, which Microsoft says delivers up to 50% better performance and enables memory encryption by default.
- Microsoft will embed Databricks features such as Genie and the Unity AI Gateway across Microsoft 365, Teams, Power BI, Purview, Foundry and OneLake, with Unity providing access policies, rate limits, budget controls and audit logs for model and agent governance.
- Databricks has reported a pending funding round valuing it at $188 billion and Microsoft’s simultaneous deal with Mistral adds a Europe-hosted compute and model option that could help Azure win more regulated customers and shift enterprise AI sourcing.