AI is all about data, and the representation of the data matters strongly. But after focusing primarily on 8-bit integers and 32‑bit floating-point numbers, the industry is now looking at new formats.

Data scientists today face a perfect storm: an explosion of inconsistent, unstructured, multimodal data scattered across silos – and mounting pressure to turn it into accessible, AI-ready insights.

Most people are familiar with data in the form of a spreadsheet, with labeled columns of different data types such as name, address, age, and so on. Databases work the same way, with each table laid ...