Data & AI 75: Companies at the Convergence of Data and AI in 2026

Data is the foundation of AI. It acts as the experiential element, providing AI systems with the necessary information to understand patterns, make decisions, and predict outcomes. From simple algorithms to complex neural networks, the quality, quantity, and variety of data directly influence the effectiveness of AI solutions. To support organizations in navigating through new challenges and a rapidly evolving Big Data ecosystem, Big Data Quarterly presents 2026's "Data and AI 75," a list of companies driving innovation and expanding what is possible in terms of collecting, storing, and extracting value from data. Read More

Beyond ETL: Building A Data Trust Framework For Enterprise Analytics

Enterprise companies persist in making significant investments in data warehouses, cloud solutions, and business intelligence tools, but numerous executives still doubt the figures generated by those systems. A well-structured Data Trust Framework fills a void that conventional data validation approaches miss: It makes the distinction between a pipeline that operates effectively and a report that executives genuinely trust. Read More

Facing the Rising Cost of Cloud Infrastructure and What Companies Can Do to Stem the Tide: Q&A With Sevalla’s Kevin Downs

The cost of memory, CPUs, motherboards, network cards, and other technology hardware, continue to rise due to the demand for power-hungry AI data centers and hyperscalers. According to zdnet, "AI data centers use two types of RAM—High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and LPDDR5X. A single server rack can consume 20TB of HBM3E and 17TB of LPDDR5X, and that's enough LPDDR5X for a thousand laptops. And that's just one server rack out of the thousands that you'll find in a single data center." Read More

The Cost of ‘Good Enough’ Data: Close Enough Is No Longer Good Enough

Over the years, I've had hundreds of conversations that started something like this: "Our data is pretty good." Sometimes the statement is made with confidence. Sometimes it's accompanied by a shrug. Occasionally it's followed by, "Sure, we have a few duplicate records, some missing values, and a little inconsistency here and there, but nothing serious." Read More

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Database Elaborations

Todd Schraml

Language is Always Hard Words such as "taxonomy" and "ontology" are often thrown around by data architects as if these terms were interchangeable. Generically, the ideas of taxonomy and ontology are similar, but not synonymous.

DBA Corner

Craig S. Mullins

The Cost of ‘Good Enough’ Data: Close Enough Is No Longer Good Enough Over the years, I've had hundreds of conversations that started something like this: "Our data is pretty good." Sometimes the statement is made with confidence. Sometimes it's accompanied by a shrug. Occasionally it's followed by, "Sure, we have a few duplicate records, some missing values, and a little inconsistency here and there, but nothing serious."

SQL Server Drill Down

Kevin Kline

The Dangers in Replacing the Human Workforce With AI Autonomous, everyday workflows; streamlined inter-team collaboration; and time given back to humans for business-focused initiatives are just a few agentic AI benefits becoming clearer each day. Unfortunately, these advantages have tempted some to give agentic AI more "agency" than it deserves, leading to the ultimate replacement of human employees.

Emerging Technologies

Resumes, Data Parsing, and How Candidates Get Noticed in Database-Driven Hiring I am on assignment at Gent & Associates' executive search department looking at the hidden role of data parsing in modern recruiting. For decades, the resume was a simple storytelling document—a 1-page narrative of who you were, what you had done, and why you were worth hiring. Today, that world is gone.

Next-Gen Data Management

Will AI Become Our Friend or Foe? Technology Professionals Weigh In. Picture this: there's a new face in the IT department, ready to step in to help tackle the increasingly complex challenges caused by modern hybrid on-prem and multi-cloud environments. Overstretched technology teams always appreciate an extra set of helping hands, but what happens when this new team member isn't human—but artificial intelligence (AI)?