San francisco: Cloudera, a hybrid data and artificial intelligence (AI) platform company, has adopted Apache Polaris as part of its open data lakehouse architecture powered by Apache Iceberg. Announced at the Snowflake Summit 2026, the integration supports Cloudera's strategy of promoting open standards, interoperability, and governed access to enterprise data across different environments.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, Cloudera Chief Product Officer, Leo Brunnick, stated that the adoption of Apache Polaris expands Cloudera's open data strategy and provides customers with greater flexibility, governance, and choice across their data ecosystems. In a statement, Cloudera said its adoption of Apache Polaris will enable organisations to securely access and share governed data across analytics and AI engines while maintaining centralised governance and operational control.

Apache Polaris, an open-source catalogue built around the Apache Iceberg REST Catalog specification, is designed to improve interoperability across modern data ecosystems and support governed access to enterprise data for AI and analytics. The integration is expected to reduce data movement and duplication while helping organisations accelerate AI and analytics initiatives, simplify governance, and lower operational complexity.

Cloudera cited its Data Readiness Index 2026, which found that 79 per cent of organisations face challenges accessing all the data required for data-driven initiatives, while only 18 per cent reported their data is fully governed. The company also contributed a new Apache Ranger authoriser plugin as an external authoriser (beta) in Apache Polaris 1.5, bringing enterprise-grade centralised security and policy management for enterprise data.