Weekly DaaS Roundup for May 15

DaaS Never Sleeps

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World of DaaS
May 15, 2025

NEWS, READS AND MORE

To succeed with AI, companies must align projects with clear business goals, build strong data management practices, and prioritize augmented intelligence to enhance human decision-making.

PredictHQ has introduced a new feature called "Forecasts" that enables businesses to anticipate the impact of future real-world events on demand, helping them improve planning and decision-making using predictive analytics.

Austrian privacy group NOYB has threatened Meta with legal action for planning to use Europeans’ personal data to train AI models without proper consent, arguing it violates EU privacy laws.

Driven by rising AI demand, Nigeria's data center operators are forecasting rapid expansion, with plans to scale infrastructure and meet growing enterprise needs for cloud services and localized data processing.

WORLD OF DAAS SUMMIT RECAP

Last week, we hosted the 2025 World of DaaS Summit in Washington, DC. It was a day full of sharp insight, real conversations, and collective intelligence. From White House sessions with senior administration officials to intimate, small group roundtables, the event brought together top leaders in data and AI to explore how high-quality, proprietary data is shaping the future. Thank you to our attendees, speakers, and sponsors for making it such a meaningful gathering.

If you are a DaaS leader and want to be part of this growing community, apply to join World of DaaS and get access to private events, curated connections, and more.

🎧 THE LATEST WOD PODCAST 🎧

Brandon Daniels is the CEO of Exiger, which provides AI-powered supply chain and third-party risk management solutions to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Exiger has annual revenues of over $150 million and received a majority investment by Carlyle, Insight Partners, and JMI Equity for $1.2 billion in 2023.

In this episode of World of DaaS, Brandon and Auren discuss:

  • Tariffs and supply chain chaos

  • Bringing manufacturing back to the US

  • Data validation in supply chain monitoring

  • Countries most vulnerable to China's influence

M&A AND FUNDING

Databricks Acquires Neon for $1B to Boost Open-Source Database Capabilities

Databricks is acquiring Neon, an open-source cloud-native Postgres database startup, for $1 billion to enhance its data lakehouse offerings with advanced transactional database capabilities.

AI21 Labs Raises $300M to Advance Large Language Models for Enterprise

AI21 Labs secured $300 million in funding from major tech players like Google and Nvidia to further develop its large language models (LLMs), aiming to deliver scalable generative AI tools tailored for enterprise use cases.

Datasharp Acquires Infobel, Location Data Company

Infobel was acquired by Datasharp with backing from Strada Partners to accelerate global expansion and pursue acquisitions in data brokerage and mapping services.

RANDOM ART OF THE WEEK

prompt: where data CEOs talk - off the record

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