Partnering for success: How Snowflake partners are key in turning CEO vision into reality

Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy speaking at the Dmexco digital marketing conference in Cologne, Germany, during his time at Google.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Snowflake has released a slew of announcements this week during its annual conference, so there are no signs of innovation slowing down at the data cloud firm.

However, one thing guaranteed to help accelerate pace and turn that vision into reality is the growing presence of its partner ecosystem, according to CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy.

“It takes a village and that is why we have partnerships,” Ramaswamy said during his Summit opening keynote earlier this week. 

In a media call last week, he also acknowledged and paid tribute to the role that partners have played and will play in continued success for everyone involved. 

“No company exists in a vacuum. It exists in an ecosystem of partners, of suppliers, of customers. Snowflake is the nervous system that carries information from one enterprise to another. And this all happens in real-time,” Ramaswamy said. 

The recognition that Snowflake is only one part of the solution is ingrained in the firm’s thinking and go to market strategy. Indeed, Benoît Dageville, co-founder of Snowflake, used his final moments on stage during the opening keynote to drill home that message and inspire partners to move into action. 

"I am excited about what we are building,” he said. “[But]. I am even more excited about what you will build. Technology is no longer the limit. Your imagination is. So please, go, unleash the power of the Data Cloud to build amazing apps. Thank you all and enjoy the rest of the week with us." 

One high-profile partnership that has been turbocharged of late is between Nvidia and Snowflake, which will ensure customers and partners can build customized AI data apps in Snowflake. 

The expanded alliance aims to really harness the power of Nvidia AI, thanks to the adoption of Nvidia’s AI enterprise software and integration of NeMo Retriever microservices into Snowflake’s Cortex AI. 

“Pairing Nvidia’s full stack accelerated computing and software with Snowflake’s state-of-the-art AI capabilities in Cortex AI is game-changing,” Ramaswamy commented in the official press statement. 

“Together, we are unlocking a new era of AI where customers from every industry and every skill level can build custom AI applications on their enterprise data with ease, efficiency, and trust.”

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, who joined Ramaswamy during the opening keynote, added: "I’m here to unite the ecosystem so we can focus on creating the infrastructure for the new industrial revolution.”

“The announcement is really game-changing. I am so happy we did it and that Snowflake drove this innovation."

In an earlier press statement, he stated: “Data is the essential raw material of the AI industrial revolution. Together, Nvidia and Snowflake will help enterprises refine their proprietary business data and transform it into valuable generative AI.

While this expanded alliance will really move the needle, it’s important to remember that there are also many smaller partnerships underpinning and helping drive forward the Snowflake partner ecosystem. 

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.