Open Lakehouse and AI
The OSA Community is proud to host the Open Lakehouse and AI event in Berlin.
As real-time databases integrate more closely with data lakes to reduce storage costs and unlock data for AI and advanced analytics, data infrastructure is evolving fast. Join us to hear from leading experts as they share practical solutions and lessons learned in building open, scalable, and high-performance data platforms.
Speakers
Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
Andreas Scherbaum, WarehousePG Architect @ EDB
Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio
Agenda
6:00 pm - Check-in and networking
6:15 - 8:00 pm - Talks
8:00 - 9:00 pm - Networking
Description of the Talks
Building a Foundation for AI with ClickHouse® and Apache Iceberg Storage
Speaker: Robert Hodges, CEO @ Altinity
Abstract: AI applications need data. Lots of it. Altinity's Project Antalya is adapting open source ClickHouse® to introduce separation of compute and storage on shared Iceberg table data. The result: fast, cheap, flexible query that extends the life of real-time analytic applications and lays the foundation for handling new AI use cases on the same datasets. We cover architecture, performance results, roadmap, and how to get started yourself.
Iceberg for Agents: Elevating Lakehouse Data Into AI-Ready Context
Speaker: Andrew Madson, Head of Developer Relations @ Fivetran
Abstract: AI agents fail in production because even though they're stuffed with data, they're starved for context. Better LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.
In this session, we'll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.
What we’ll cover:
Iceberg Foundations for AI - from ACID to Time Travel
From Rows to Relationships - The role of the semantic layer
Structured RAG in Practice - Fully open source
The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.
How we made WarehousePG Open Source (again)
Speaker: Andreas Scherbaum, WarehousePG Architect @ EDB
Abstract: WarehousePG is an Open Source fork of Greenplum Database, which by itself is a fork of PostgreSQL. The project was born after the upstream project was made closed source.
This talk gives a quick overview of the history of both projects, which already spans more than two decades. We then dive into the reasons for creating a fork, and all the stumbling stones we had to pass in order to make this project open source again. We also talk about the challenges of CLAs (Contributor License Agreements) and what implications the PostgreSQL and Apache Licenses have for the project.
The Open Data Lakehouse: Who Benefits?
Speaker: Will Martin, Evangelist @ Dremio
Abstract: Data Lakehouses have long benefited from open standards, with many established table formats and now emerging alternatives for the data catalog. But where does this leave the users, customers, and vendors? Who sees the benefits of these open technologies?
In this talk I will delve into the Open Data Lakehouse, the analytics platform that delivers industry-leading performance on open software standards. We will delve into the technical details of Apache Iceberg and Apache Polaris, what they deliver for modern data analytics, and who is impacted by these ground-breaking collaborations.