Acquisition doubles down on SAP\u2019s early mover advantage in tabular foundation models<\/p>\n
WALLDORF and FREIBURG\u00a0\u2014\u00a0SAP SE<\/a>\u00a0(NYSE: SAP) and Prior Labs, the pioneer of Tabular Foundation Models (TFMs), announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for SAP to purchase Prior Labs, accelerating SAP\u2019s success in TFMs that started with SAP-RPT-1, and bringing one of the world\u2019s leading TFM research teams into the SAP family. <\/p>\n Prior Labs will continue to operate as an independent entity, with SAP committing to invest more than \u20ac1 billion over the next four years to scale it into a globally leading frontier AI lab for the structured data that runs the world\u2019s businesses. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is still pending regulatory approval.<\/p>\n Large language models (LLMs) struggle\u00a0to make accurate predictions on structured business data because\u00a0they have\u00a0only a rudimentary understanding of tables, numbers and statistics. Unlike LLMs, TFMs are purpose-built for this type of data and can accurately predict business outcomes based on tabular data such as payment delays, supplier risks, upsell opportunities, customer churn risk and more.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly on, SAP recognized that the greatest untapped opportunity in enterprise AI wasn\u2019t large language models; it was AI built for the structured data that runs the world\u2019s businesses,\u201d SAP CTO Philipp Herzig said. \u201cWe built SAP-RPT-1 to prove that conviction for enterprise data. Prior Labs has built a leading TFM on public benchmarks and built one of the leading research teams in this category. Combining their frontier model work with enterprise data and customer reach is how we intend to lead this category globally.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last 18 months, Prior Labs has built an incredible team, increasing the velocity in tabular foundation models,\u201d Prior Labs CEO Frank Hutter said. \u201cJoining the SAP family gives us the resources, data environment and customer reach to take this category to its full potential.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the transaction is closed, with Prior Labs, SAP\u00a0will have\u00a0the special opportunity to\u00a0establish\u00a0an industry-leading\u00a0AI\u00a0research\u00a0lab and shape a new category in\u00a0TFMs. The lab will\u00a0operate\u00a0as an independent unit to ensure research velocity, while SAP provides long-term investment and a direct path to productization across the SAP portfolio with SAP AI Core and SAP Business Data Cloud as well as the agentic layer with Joule.<\/p>\n With over 3 million downloads, Prior Labs\u2019 TabPFN is a widely adopted open-source tool for tabular AI, supporting a dynamic developer ecosystem. SAP is fully committed to further support this open-source strategy. The Prior Labs cofounders Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann and Sauraj Gambhir lead a team of world-class AI researchers and practitioners. The company works with leading scientists in the field, including\u00a0Yann\u00a0LeCun,\u00a0ACM A.M. Turing Award winner and executive chairman at Advanced Machine Intelligence,\u00a0and\u00a0Bernhard Schoelkopf, director of Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and ELLIS president, both of whom will serve on Prior Labs\u2019 scientific advisory board as it scales to a globally leading frontier AI lab.<\/p>\n Accelerating Innovation<\/p>\n Prior Labs\u2019 TabPFN-2.6 is the top-performing model on TabArena, the top benchmark for TFMs. TabPFN-2.6 matches the accuracy of a four-hour automated machine learning pipeline \u2014 instantly, in a single model, at a fraction of the complexity.<\/p>\n With a conversational interface layered on top, business users can ask questions in natural language, generate or select datasets and run \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios without needing to be data science and machine learning experts. With Prior Labs\u2019 models, SAP will provide in-context learning, allowing users to provide data records to receive instant, reliable predictions without any model training. A single TFM can adapt to any business use case on the fly, resulting in faster time to value with GDPR compliance.<\/p>\n With Prior Labs, SAP will deliver TFMs with superior predictive capability that understand tables natively, learning statistical reasoning directly from data and will power agentic AI systems capable of understanding high-level goals, combining tables, language and images to reason, integrate domain knowledge, infer causality and adapt dynamically.<\/p>\n After the close, SAP and Prior Labs plan to turn top AI research into enterprise-ready innovation, allowing customers to get even more value out of their tabular business data.\u00a0True intelligence requires moving beyond correlation to understand\u00a0causation. Answering \u201cWhat will happen?\u201d is\u00a0useful, but\u00a0answering why\u00a0it\u00a0will happen is transformative.<\/p>\n The transaction is expected to close in Q2 or Q3 of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. <\/p>\n Visit the\u00a0SAP News Center<\/a>. Get SAP news via\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n About Prior Labs<\/p>\n Prior Labs\u00a0is the pioneer of Tabular Foundation Models, a new category of AI purpose-built for structured data.\u00a0Founded by Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann & Sauraj Gambhir,\u00a0Prior Labs\u2019\u00a0TabPFN\u00a0model series, published in Nature,\u00a0set\u00a0the\u00a0state-of-the-art on tabular benchmarks across hundreds of independent academic studies.\u00a0Prior Labs is scaling tabular foundation models to handle millions of rows, real-time inference, and entirely new data modalities, while building the infrastructure to deploy them in production across some of the most demanding industries on earth.<\/p>\n Headquartered in Freiburg, Germany, and offices in Berlin and New York City, Prior Labs has built one of the leading AI research teams globally, with researchers recruited from Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, G-Research, Jane Street, Goldman Sachs, and CERN. www.priorlabs.ai<\/a><\/p>\n About SAP<\/p>\n As\u202fa global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP (NYSE: SAP)\u202fstands at the\u202fnexus\u202fof business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP\u202fto bring out their best by uniting business-critical\u202foperations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit\u202fwww.sap.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sign up for the SAP News Center newsletter to receive stories and highlights each week<\/p>\n Note to editors: For customers interested in learning more about SAP products: For more information, press only: This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP\u2019s 2025 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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