Artificial intelligence ceased a while ago to represent only and exclusively the future, playing a key role in the technological development of businesses already today. Bitrock is aware of this, and starting this year it has decided to launch its new Data, AI & ML Engineering area, precisely to apply next-generation technologies to one of the activities that most affect business growth: the proper management of data. A topic dear to the 100% Made in Italy consulting company, but also to the entire reference Group (Fortitude), which with its sister company Radicalbit has been dealing with streaming data analysis for several years now.
Collecting the information at hand, cataloging, and exploring it, training a model, running it and maintaining it, are all steps in an extremely complex cycle that, if completed correctly, yields countless benefits: from the ability to make timely decisions to the ability to minimize the waste of energy and raw materials, with related impact on business costs. With this in mind, and to give the new unit greater momentum, a partnership has been signed with Databricks, the company known for creating Apache Spark, MLflow and the data lakehouse with Delta Lake: a combination of data warehouse and data lake in a single, simple platform to better manage all types of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data.
Antonio Barbuzzi has been appointed to Head the unit. The manager, who has a degree in telecommunications engineering and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, has always been involved, including abroad, in everything related to data analytics, both for large companies and emerging startups. After several years in France and the UK, he returned to Italy at the end of 2019, to Unicredit Services, as Head of GCC CBK Branch Tools and Head of ICT CRM and later as technical manager of the integration of the bank’s new CRM. He joins Bitrock, precisely as Head of Data, AI & ML Engineering, in September last year.
“I am delighted to have joined such an innovative company as Bitrock. Helping the company in this new path will certainly be a difficult challenge but also a very compelling one. – declares Barbuzzi, Head of Data, AI & ML Engineering Area at Bitrock – Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning technologies, together with the Cloud, are crucial for our clients’ business development, particularly when applied to data management and analysis. The goal will, therefore, be to provide them with tools and skills that can support them in the most congenial way, creating tailor-made services from time to time.”
“Automation, simplification, and Artificial Intelligence are in our view the pillars of the future on which we base our work to ensure speed of development, cost reduction, and overall increase in efficiency for businesses. – Adds Leo Pillon, CEO of Bitrock – This is the vision of the entire Fortitude Group, as well as of Bitrock as it begins this new journey. The hope is that in a short time we can become an authoritative reference in a specific sector that is becoming more and more important day by day.”
Scenario
According to recent estimates by Expert Market Research (2022), investment in data management-related activities amounts to about $70 billion, one-fifth of the total spending used for infrastructure creation in 2021 according to Gartner. A fast-growing trend that is also reflected in the job market, where data scientist, data engineer and machine learning engineer are among the most sought-after figures globally. A similar scenario is expected for the future. According to McKinsey, by 2025 companies will base all kinds of decisions on data analysis, relying on real-time processing for increasingly precise insights.
