AWS Acquires DuckLabs to Boost Analytics Capabilities

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced its acquisition of DuckLabs, an Amsterdam-based company behind the open-source analytical database DuckDB. The deal is expected to close shortly, subject to customary closing conditions. Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt, who created DuckDB and co-founded DuckLabs, will continue leading the team and the open-source project's technical direction as part of AWS.

The acquisition aims to combine the performance and simplicity of DuckDB with the scalability and reliability of AWS's analytics services. DuckDB has been widely adopted for its ability to execute SQL queries quickly against small to medium-sized data sets, which is particularly useful for AI agents that often interact with data in a exploratory manner.

AWS customers are already using DuckDB to analyze terabytes of scientific data and have seen significant performance improvements. For example, the Allen Institute has reported that queries that took minutes now come back in under a second, enabling new ways of interacting with data.