European Software Giant SAP Teams Up with OpenAI to Launch “OpenAI for Germany”

On Wednesday, German enterprise software leader SAP and OpenAI announced a strategic partnership to develop “OpenAI for Germany,” an AI initiative designed to deliver secure, sovereign AI services tailored for Germany’s public sector. SAP’s shares rose more than 2% following the announcement.

The collaboration involves three key players: OpenAI will provide foundational AI technology, SAP will contribute its deep enterprise application expertise and infrastructure from its sovereign cloud platform, and Microsoft will support SAP’s subsidiary Delos Cloud via the Azure cloud platform. According to the joint statement, the project will store all data locally within Germany and fully comply with European data protection laws, ensuring data sovereignty and regulatory compliance. The service is scheduled to launch in 2026.

To support the initiative, SAP plans to scale its Delos Cloud infrastructure in Germany to 4,000 GPUs dedicated to AI workloads and will make additional investments to bolster applied AI capabilities in the country.

The partnership directly advances Germany’s national AI strategy, which aims for AI-driven value creation to account for 10% of GDP by 2030. The broader national effort has committed over €631 billion in investments and has already secured support from 61 companies and global investors. SAP recently pledged more than €20 billion toward this goal.

This marks the latest—but not the first—AI move by SAP. As one of Europe’s largest tech companies, SAP has previously invested in AI startups such as Aleph Alpha, Cohere, and Anthropic, seeking to foster European alternatives to U.S.-based foundation model providers.

Beyond “OpenAI for Germany,” SAP is expanding its sovereign cloud offerings globally. The company already operates sovereign cloud services in 10 regions—including the U.S., Europe, and India—and has allocated €20 billion to accelerate their international rollout.

In a separate announcement on Wednesday, SAP also revealed a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enhance its digital sovereignty services for European government clients.