Databricks Plans to Double its Local Headcount in Japan to Support Business Growth and Drive Customer Success

• Across the Asia Pacific & Japan region, the company is experiencing 90% y-o-y business growth 
• Recently appointed Japan Country Manager Toshifumi Sasa to drive further adoption of the lakehouse platform

Tokyo, Japan, May 25, 2023 - Databricks, the data and AI company, announced strong data lakehouse adoption in Japan and plans to more than double its local team to over 100 employees this year, adding roles such as technical specialists, sales and support engineers, and go-to-market resources, to support business growth and drive customer success. Across the Asia Pacific region, the company is experiencing 90% y-o-y business growth. 

With the recent surge in the popularity of large language models (LLMs), the world has woken up to the vast potential of AI, and organizations are prioritizing their data and AI strategies. With the Databricks Lakehouse Platform, Databricks is enabling organizations to build their own LLMs and leverage AI to usher in the next generation of innovation. The data lakehouse, pioneered by Databricks, is an open and unified data management architecture that combines the flexibility, cost-efficiency and scalability of data lakes with the data management features of data warehouses, enabling business intelligence (BI) and artificial intelligence (AI) on all data.

Data-forward companies are harnessing the value of their data and leveraging AI to optimize their business operations and drive innovations through the lakehouse platform. In Japan, Databricks customers include leading companies such as AGC, Kakehashi, Tokio Marine, SoftBank Corp, Nikkei, Recruit, Carbee, Money Forward, Inc., Tanabe Mitsubishi Pharmaceutical and Omron Healthcare.

“Using the Databricks Lakehouse Platform, we are able to eliminate data silos, implement a unified data governance, and accurately forecast demand for medical supplies using AI to improve the experience for patients and medical providers. Data and AI enables us to transform the digital experience for medical care by leveraging our partnership with Databricks,” said Kenji Matsuda, Data Infrastructure Manager, Kakehashi Inc.

“As the importance of digital technology increases dramatically, it is imperative to build faster and more flexible data linkages. With the Databricks Lakehouse Platform, we have superiority in machine learning and visualization, and these tools empower our in-house data scientists,” said Mr. Hiroshi Todoriki, Director, Digital Solution Group, Digital Innovation Promotion Department, AGC Inc.

“I’m thrilled to be leading the Databricks Japan business at such a pivotal point where Japanese business leaders are awakening to the power of data and AI to transform their businesses and enable true digital transformation. I believe 2023 is going to be an exciting year where many organizations will make a decision to go on a single unified data architecture that allows them to eliminate data silos and unlock the full potential of next-generation AI,” said Toshifumi Sasa, Vice President and Country Manager for Databricks Japan. 

Databricks recently announced it will deliver the Databricks Lakehouse Platform on Google Cloud Tokyo region. The launch of Databricks infrastructure in the Google Cloud Tokyo region will support the most innovative, forward-looking Japanese organizations, as they leverage Databricks on Google Cloud to transform their businesses with data-driven applications and use cases. The launch makes it easier than ever for Japanese businesses to leverage Databricks on Google Cloud to create a modern data architecture capable of data engineering, data science, machine learning, and analytics on Google Cloud’s global, scalable, and elastic network.

With this latest partnership, Databricks is available on all major cloud platforms in Japan including AWS, Microsoft Azure as well as Google Cloud. 

“We welcome Databricks’ decision to build and launch the Databricks Lakehouse Platform on Google Cloud in the Tokyo Region. By purchasing and beginning to use the service through Google Cloud Marketplace, we look forward to seeing customers in Japan perform advanced data utilization even more quickly on Google Cloud,” said Hisayuki Ishizumi, Managing Director, Partnerships, Google Cloud Japan G.K.

Local Databricks partners like NTT Data, CTC and Accenture play an integral role in bringing the vision of the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to life for customers in Japan. 

“We sincerely welcome the announcement of Databricks’ plans for expanding its business in Japan. Accenture has extensive experience working with numerous clients, both in Japan and globally, to support the implementation of Databricks’ Lakehouse platform and the use of data and AI on that platform. We are committed to strengthening our partnership with Databricks and will do our best to help customers transform their businesses through the use of data and AI,” said Satoshi Mihara, Managing Director, Accenture Technology, Data Group Lead, Accenture Japan Ltd.