SAP, Databricks expand SAP Databricks at SAP TechEd

SAP and Databricks first introduced SAP Databricks last year, natively embedding the Databricks Data + AI Platform in SAP Business Data Cloud. Since general availability, customers including Adidas, Zalando, Mondi, and CAF have used SAP Databricks and SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Databricks to analyze, govern, and build AI on live, semantically rich SAP Data Products through zero-copy, bi-directional OpenSharing. The new announcement at SAP TechEd extends that foundation.

Previously, accessing SAP application data typically meant building and maintaining custom extraction pipelines that copy data, lose business context along the way, and fragment governance. SAP Application Data Foundation is presented as a cloud-native alternative that shares SAP data products with SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for zero-copy access, avoiding additional pipelines, data copies and silos.

The expanded partnership plans to bring Genie, Lakeflow, Unity Gateway and Lakebase into SAP Databricks. SAP CTO Philipp Herzig framed the move as combining SAP's understanding of business processes with Databricks' data platform to help customers build a foundation for the Autonomous Enterprise. Databricks' Michael Kiermaier said customers can combine Genie with Joule to deliver business context to every team and agent. SAP and Databricks also said they are expanding their go-to-market partnership with joint field teams, which may speed adoption among joint customers.