SAP and Databricks Enable Customers to Unify Data for AI

SAP and Databricks announced a new partnership and product that makes it easier for customers to unify all their data by combining their SAP data with the rest of their enterprise data.

The new SAP Databricks product natively integrates the Databricks Data Intelligence Cloud within the newly launched SAP Business Data Cloud, the companies said in a Thursday (Feb. 13) press release.

The product brings together all of a customer’s relevant datasets and make them ready to be used for data warehousing, building artificial intelligence (AI) that can reason on the data, and other purposes, according to the release.

“Every organization is searching for a faster, more reliable way to translate their data into strategic advantage,” Databricks Co-Founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi said in the release. “Together with SAP, we’re helping businesses seamlessly unify their data sources, streamline analytics and accelerate the development of domain-specific AI applications.”

SAP announced the launch of its SAP Business Data Cloud on Thursday in another press release, saying it unifies all SAP and third-party data throughout an organization to help the organization make decisions and build AI.

SAP Business Data Cloud delivers SAP data products across all business processes — including finance, spend, supply chain, learning and talent data — while maintaining their original business context and semantics, according to the release.

It also offers “insight apps” that use data products and AI models connected to real-time data to deliver analytics and planning, per the release.

“SAP Business Data Cloud unleashes the full value of enterprise data for Business AI,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said in the release. “It combines SAP’s unique expertise in mission-critical, end-to-end processes and semantically rich data with Databricks’ world-class data engineering capabilities to create a ground-breaking solution that helps organizations do more with their data than ever before.”

SAP announced in January 2024 that it was undertaking a restructuring program that would increase its focus on Business AI and other key strategic growth areas and transform its own operational setup to capture AI-driven efficiencies.

Seven months later, in July, the company said it raised its 2025 operating profit ambition to reflect the efficiency gains it expected to see from the restructuring program.

As for Databricks, it said in January that it raised $15 billion in a Series J funding round and planned to invest its capital in new AI products, acquisitions and the expansion of its international go-to-market operations.