Hive is a data warehouse infrastructure built on top of Hadoop for providing data query and analysis. It facilitates querying and managing large data sets residing in distributed storage using a SQL-like language called HiveQL. Hive abstracts the complexity of Hadoop's MapReduce programming model, allowing users to perform data analysis tasks without needing to write complex code. It supports a wide range of data formats and integrates with other tools in the Hadoop ecosystem, making it a versatile solution for data warehousing and business intelligence.