Databricks to invest $420m into ANZ region

Data and AI company Databricks has committed to investing US$300 million (AU$420 million) into Australia and New  Zealand over the next three years in response to growing demand for the company’s solutions in the region.

As part of the investment, Databricks will open a 2000 m² office in the Sydney CBD later this year. The new ANZ headquarters will include dedicated training facilities for the company’s growing team of employees. Funding will also be put towards helping upskill 100,000 people in advanced data and AI skills and to meeting increasing demand for the serverless AI agent database solution Lakebase, generative AI-powered business intelligence platform Genie and production AI agent solution Agent Bricks. All three solutions are now generally available in Australia and New Zealand.

Databricks VP and Country Manager for ANZ Adam Beavis said the company is seeing growing demand from multiple parts of the Australian and New Zealand economies, including the public sector, financial services and energy.

“We’re seeing a clear shift from AI experimentation to impact across ANZ enterprises. Organisations are moving beyond pilots into production — from improving customer experiences to streamlining operations,” he said. “Our US$300 million investment reflects the pace of adoption and our long-term commitment to the region. Now our customers can innovate even faster with Lakebase, Genie and Agent Bricks, build with confidence and drive tangible business outcomes.”

The City of Melbourne is one of the company’s most recent customers. The local government’s Innovation and Education Portfolio Head Councillor Andrew Rowse said the Genie solution has helped the council build a unified data foundation to power its data and AI transformation.

“With Genie, teams can query complex data, like pedestrian flows, using natural language, turning raw data into real-time, actionable insights. It’s empowering our people to self-serve insights and accelerating our journey to becoming a truly data-driven organisation,” he said.

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