SAP announced plans to acquire German artificial intelligence startup Prior Labs and will invest 1 billion euros (about 11.6 billion US dollars) in the company over the next four years to establish an AI lab focused on structured data. This transaction still requires regulatory approval, and SAP has not disclosed the exact amount of the acquisition, but according to sources, it is a "mostly cash" deal, with the founding team receiving more than 500 million US dollars in cash.

Prior Labs was founded just 18 months ago, focusing on developing table-based models (TFMs), these AI models can make predictions from data stored in tables and databases. For SAP, such models may be more suitable for its business than traditional language models, as SAP's software products are widely used in areas such as accounting, human resources, procurement, and expense management.

Against the backdrop of the industry rapidly transitioning to intelligent agent technologies, SAP is also taking defensive measures. SAP has prohibited unauthorized AI agents from accessing its products and only allows access through "SAP-approved architectures." This includes SAP's own Joule agent, which customers can use to create their own agents. Additionally, SAP customers will be authorized to use the Nvidia NemoClaw agent.

SAP Chief Financial Officer Dominik Asam said that AI is both a threat and an opportunity, and the company needs to quickly incorporate these new technologies into its R&D portfolio. SAP is not standing still, and previously invested in multiple generative AI companies, including those related to language models. SAP also developed SAP-RPT-1, a relational pre-trained transformer model, designed to fill the gap in structured data within the enterprise AI field.

The acquisition of Prior Labs will provide significant support for SAP's progress in this area. The company's TabPFN model series has already received positive feedback among developers, with more than 3 million downloads of its open-source models. SAP has promised that Prior Labs will maintain the independence of the open-source version and continue to drive research advancements.

With this major investment, Prior Labs aims to become a leading AI laboratory for structured data globally. At the same time, SAP is very strict in its selection of agent technologies, which contrasts sharply with the open attitude of its competitor Salesforce.

Key Points:   

🤑 SAP announced the acquisition of AI startup Prior Labs and will invest one billion euros to establish an AI lab.  

📊 Prior Labs focuses on table-based models, providing enterprise AI solutions that are more suitable.  

🔒 SAP restricts the use of unauthorized AI agents, allowing access only through specific architectures.