The Data + AI Platform for Higher Education

The Data + AI Platform enables universities to unify data and AI on an open and collaborative platform that easily integrates generative AI and LLM models, and empowers them to optimize the delivery of personalized student experiences and accelerate innovation across the education landscape.

Use all types of data

Only 5%–10% of an organization’s data is structured. Tapping into the other 90% of data helps educational institutions better understand the environment around them and make better decisions. The Data + AI Platform for Higher Education has native support for all types of data, structured and unstructured, like images and video.

Simplify governance and compliance

Seamlessly govern structured and unstructured data, machine learning models, notebooks, dashboards and files on any cloud or platform with Databricks Unity Catalog.

Personalized products and experiences

Gain a single view of your student that combines all data sources and types. With a real-time, accurate 360-degree view in place, educational institutions can fast-track academic research, safeguard sensitive information, and boost student retention and success rates.

Real-time insights, smarter decisions

The Data + AI Platform enables universities to both rapidly ingest data at scale and make insights available across all aspects of higher education in real time. Speed is the antidote to volatility, and educational institutions are using Databricks to power real-time operations with data.

Inexpensive and open collaboration

Higher education institutions need to collaborate with students, educators and other organizations in real time, but existing data sharing technologies are expensive and often require that all parties invest in the same proprietary technology. The Data + AI Platform for Higher Education leverages Delta Sharing to provide an open and secure method of data collaboration and sharing for organizations. This inexpensive approach unlocks the power of collaboration with all students, educators and partners.

Higher education institutions heavily utilize third-party data and partners that are highly sensitive. The challenge? It’s time-consuming and expensive to bring in new datasets and partners.

Databricks Marketplace, underpinned by the powerful capabilities of Delta Sharing, streamlines this and enables institutions to quickly integrate new data in their environment in a period of hours and days. They can also leverage new models and apps and even share data with other partners via secure data clean rooms.

• Integrate external data from partners
• Leverage data clean rooms with Habu and LiveRamp
• Quickly leverage data with third-party apps
• Tuck in new functionality from point solutions

The impact of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) on society is growing by the day. Within the higher education industry, practical applications for innovations such as ChatGPT and Dolly are widespread — including the improvement of student engagement and success, enhancing curriculum planning, and optimizing recruitment strategies — all with the goal of elevating higher education performance and innovation for the betterment of students.

The fuel that makes an LLM run effectively is high-quality data, and lots of it. The Databricks Data + AI Platform for Higher Education provides the underlying architecture and tooling to harness student, research and operational data to easily deliver generative AI and LLM models to the entire organization. With a unified platform for all data types — structured, semi-structured and unstructured — the lakehouse architecture enables higher education institutions to power their AI initiatives with all the data necessary.

On top of the unified platform Databricks provides, we have developed free, purpose-built guides — fully functional notebooks and best practices — that speed up results across the most common and high-impact higher education use cases. Check out our Solution Accelerators to get started today.