Building Knowledge Graphs

Chapter 14. From Knowledge Graphs to Knowledge Lakes

Data is one of a modern enterprise’s most valuable assets. With an organizing principle in hand, you can build a knowledge graph that drives significant business value for many use cases. This final chapter examines potential future directions for knowledge graphs. You’ll see how knowledge graphs may move down the enterprise stack into a more foundational role and how in that role their scope will broaden. This intriguing pattern is known as a knowledge lake, and it might be one possible future for knowledge graph technology.

Conventional Knowledge Graph Deployments

In the last few years, the deployment of knowledge graphs has proliferated, mirroring the advances in modern graph technology. Knowledge graphs for individual use cases or departments are becoming commonplace. Indeed, knowledge graphs for significant cross-functional business activities (e.g., compliance) or entities (e.g., customers) are now becoming increasingly common. At each step, as the scope of the knowledge graph grows, the infrastructure to support it moves further down the stack, as shown in Figure 14-1.

Figure 14-1. Knowledge graph proliferation to date

The high-level architecture shown in Figure 14-1 is uncontroversial. Some knowledge graphs have narrow use, and some have broader use. Each drives some business value.

The knowledge graph starts as a ...