The significance of databases to fashionable enterprise AI operations can’t be overstated.
Knowledge helps to coach and floor AI, and a number of analysis studies present that with out correct knowledge, AI efforts are inclined to fail. With developments like vibe coding and agentic AI, it’s additionally more and more essential to have database know-how that may be spun up as wanted in a serverless strategy to fashionable improvement efforts.
In that surroundings, it ought to come as no shock that databases are a very precious commodity.
This week, that truth was on show with Databricks‘ acquisition of privately held serverless PostgreSQL startup Neon, which was based in 2022. The deal is reportedly valued at a staggering $1 billion, which is stunning given that hardly two years in the past, the corporate raised $46 million in a collection B spherical of funding.
What can also be notably attention-grabbing is that Databricks itself is an information vendor, with its knowledge lakehouse platform. At numerous factors within the firm’s historical past, it has positioned itself as an alternative choice to conventional databases, offering an information lake construction the place customers could make queries. So what was lacking, and why did Databricks have to spend a billion {dollars}? What does it imply and say about what enterprise AI actually wants?
Functionally, it’s all about assembly builders’ must construct agentic AI purposes. In accordance with Neon, over 80% of the databases created on its platform had been created by AI brokers.
What’s serverless PostgreSQL and why does it matter?
Whereas Neon is a startup, the core database know-how that it’s based mostly on isn’t new.
PostgreSQL is among the oldest and most established open-source database platforms, relationship again to 1996. It’s a relational database know-how, which means it has tables and rows alongside extraordinarily secure options that organizations have trusted for many years. The core open-source PostgreSQL database is now up to date in a yearly launch cadence. The latest secure replace was PostgreSQL 17, which debuted in Sept. 2024.
As an open-source know-how, PostgreSQL has loved broad adoption and contributions. At one level, it was usually in comparison with different proprietary relational database choices, together with Oracle as a substitute possibility. In 2025, although, PostgreSQL stands by itself.
DB-Engines at the moment ranks PostgreSQL because the fourth hottest database in use at this time, behind Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle. The state of PostgreSQL 2024 report from Timescale identifies the open-source database’s rising prominence because the database of alternative for AI purposes. The database’s well-established and understood nature and broad availability are among the many quite a few elements that make it enticing.
PostgreSQL by itself is simply the database, although. Operating it as a serverless providing is an operational and deployment exercise. The promise of any serverless database is ease of operations. Slightly than requiring a devoted database deployment that regularly runs with devoted sources, serverless is spun up on demand as wanted. It’s a deployment possibility that’s notably enticing to builders as a approach to construct purposes shortly. AI-based improvement is much more interesting as databases could be constructed and deployed programmatically.
The serverless PostgreSQL panorama has numerous distributors
Each cloud hyperscaler has some type of PostgreSQL service and has for years.
Google has a number of choices, together with AlloyDB, Microsoft has Azure Database for PostgreSQL, whereas AWS has Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora. Every of them additionally has some taste of serverless providing, that’s, a database accessible on demand.
Quite a few smaller distributors exist, together with Timescale, EDB and NetApp Instaclustr. In truth, almost two years in the past, Databricks acquired serverless PostgreSQL vendor bit.io, which was additionally an early rival of Neon.
Because it seems, the objectives and capabilities of bit.io are fairly totally different from Neon.
“Together with the Neon team, we look forward to building the most developer and AI-agent-friendly database platform,” Phil Shin, senior director of company improvement and ventures at Databricks, instructed VentureBeat. “In contrast, the bit.io acquisition was not actually about Postgres but targeting developer experiences, especially in the trials and self-service process.”
Shin added that the bit.io acquisition had a big effect on Databricks’ seamless signup expertise.
How serverless PostgreSQL suits into the enterprise database panorama
Whereas Neon has solely been round for a number of years with its serverless PostgreSQL implementation, industrial vendor EDB has been in enterprise since 2004. EDB has a collection of its personal commercially supported PostgreSQL choices.
Matt Yonkovit, VP of Product for EDB, instructed VentureBeat that the acquisition of Neon is a powerful vote of confidence in Postgres as a foundational know-how for AI and analytics.
“It reinforces what we’ve long believed: Postgres is increasingly central to modern data stacks,” Yonkovit stated. “Serverless is a great fit for dev/test environments and for quickly jumpstarting AI projects—but as those use cases scale, enterprises need the performance, compliance, and control of a sovereign platform.”
Yonkovit famous that serverless is well-suited for brief bursts and smaller workloads. It might probably scale up and down shortly or shut off solely when idle, which considerably reduces prices related to compute, energy and storage. Nonetheless, in his view, there are tradeoffs.
“A significant challenge with serverless is that sovereign data management can become messy because you can’t control where the data is processed unless you have a well-restricted pool of resources,” Yonkovit stated.
The facility of serverless PostgreSQL for agentic AI
Neon’s serverless PostgreSQL strategy separates storage and compute, making it developer-friendly and AI-native. It additionally allows automated scaling in addition to branching in an strategy that’s much like how the Git model management system works for code.
Amalgam Insights CEO and Chief Analyst Hyoun Park famous that Databricks has been a pioneer in deploying and scaling AI initiatives.
“One of the big challenges in AI is managing the storage and compute associated with the data,” Park instructed VentureBeat. “Every of those wants will probably be more and more exhausting to foretell in an agentic world the place end-user prompts and requests could shortly result in surprising calls for in storage or compute to resolve the issue.
Park defined that Neon’s serverless autoscaling strategy to PostgreSQL is essential for AI as a result of it permits brokers and AI initiatives to develop as wanted with out artificially coupling storage and compute wants collectively. He added that for Databricks, that is helpful each for agentic use instances and for supporting the customized fashions they’ve constructed over the past couple of years after its Mosaic AI acquisition.
What it means for enterprise AI leaders
For enterprises seeking to paved the way in AI, this acquisition alerts a shift in infrastructure necessities for profitable AI implementation.
Knowledge is important for AI; that’s not a shock. What is especially insightful, although, is that the power to quickly spin up databases is crucial for agentic AI success. The deal validates that even superior knowledge corporations want specialised serverless database capabilities to help AI brokers that create and handle databases programmatically.
Organizations ought to acknowledge that conventional database approaches could restrict their AI initiatives, whereas versatile, immediately scalable serverless options allow the dynamic useful resource allocation that fashionable AI purposes demand.
For corporations nonetheless planning their AI roadmap, this acquisition alerts that database infrastructure choices ought to prioritize serverless capabilities that may adapt shortly to unpredictable AI workloads. This may remodel database technique from a technical consideration to a aggressive benefit in delivering responsive, environment friendly AI options.
Every day insights on enterprise use instances with VB Every day
If you wish to impress your boss, VB Every day has you coated. We provide the inside scoop on what corporations are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to sensible deployments, so you may share insights for max ROI.
An error occured.
