Snowflake

Snowflake provides a managed cloud platform for enterprises to store, process and share data, build applications, and run AI workloads. Data engineers build ingestion and transformation pipelines; analysts query data with SQL; developers use Snowpark to run Python, Java and Scala code. Its Cortex and Snowflake ML offerings connect AI development to enterprise data: Cortex uses large language models to analyze unstructured content and answer questions, while Snowflake ML supports custom model development, deployment, feature stores and model registries.

Founded in 2012 by Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Zukowski, Snowflake is led by CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy. Its defining database architecture separates persistent storage from independently scalable compute clusters called virtual warehouses. Multiple teams can process the same stored data using separate compute resources. The design also makes semi-structured formats such as JSON accessible through SQL. Snowflake’s 2016 architecture paper received the 2026 SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award.

Snowflake earns product revenue primarily through customers’ consumption of compute, storage and data-transfer resources. In September 2026, the company reported more than 14,500 customers worldwide. Its platform extends beyond internal analytics: organizations can share selected database objects with other Snowflake accounts, distribute data and applications through its Marketplace, and use data clean rooms to permit defined analyses without granting unrestricted access to shared data.