SAP Business Data Cloud Timeline 2025 to 2026: What SAP Announced and What Happened Since

SAP announced Business Data Cloud (BDC) in February 2025. Since then every large SAP event has added something: a rename, a connector, a region, a pricing model. This post puts the milestones in order, as of October 2026, and says for each one what SAP announced and what happened afterwards. It replaces the separate event recaps we had on this blog.

For the plain-language explanation of what BDC is, read SAP Business Data Cloud explained. For how we help customers start, see our SAP Business Data Cloud page.

TL;DR: BDC launched in February 2025 as a bundle of Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW and SAP Databricks with SAP-managed data products. In 2025 SAP renamed insight apps to intelligent applications, made three of them generally available and opened BDC to customer-owned data platforms through BDC Connect. In 2026 BDC arrived on Azure in Switzerland, pricing moved to Capacity Units, and SAP made BDC the data base of its Business AI platform. For SAP CX data, the practical route is still your own integration into Datasphere.

February 2025: the launch

On 13 February 2025 SAP announced Business Data Cloud together with Databricks. The announcement had four parts:

• One offering that brings SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW (including the private cloud edition) and the new SAP Databricks together.
• SAP-managed data products: curated data sets from SAP applications, with their business meaning attached and kept current by SAP. The first ones covered S/4HANA finance, spend and supply chain, SAP Ariba and SAP SuccessFactors.
• Insight apps: prebuilt analytics and planning content on top of the data products.
• Zero-copy sharing through Delta Sharing, both with SAP Databricks and with Databricks environments customers already run.

What happened since: the core of the launch held. Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud stayed, as SAP said they would, and data products remain the substance of BDC. Two things that were open at launch are now answered: availability (see May 2025) and pricing (see spring 2026). One thing is still open: SAP-managed data products for SAP CX applications.

May 2025: Sapphire, intelligent applications and Joule

At Sapphire in Orlando SAP put more substance behind BDC:

• Insight apps became intelligent applications. People Intelligence was announced for the second half of 2025. Cloud ERP, Customer, Finance and Spend Intelligence entered technology preview.
• Joule in BDC became generally available.
• SAP Databricks was available inside BDC, starting on AWS.
• Hyperscalers: BDC on AWS from the second quarter of 2025, with Azure and Google Cloud expected in the second half of 2025.
• Data products: SAP promised hundreds of new data products across the SAP Business Suite during 2025.

What happened since: the previews moved. Five months later three intelligent applications were generally available (see October 2025). Customer Intelligence did not ship under that name; it reappeared as Revenue Intelligence. The Azure plan arrived in Switzerland in March 2026, later than the 2025 slide suggested.

October 2025: SAP Connect, BDC Connect and Revenue Intelligence

At SAP Connect in Las Vegas the focus shifted to openness and to the next wave of applications. SAP’s status from October 2025:

• Generally available: Finance Intelligence, People Intelligence and Cloud ERP Intelligence Private.
• Restricted public preview: Spend Intelligence, Supply Chain Intelligence and Revenue Intelligence.
• BDC Connect: the product name for bi-directional zero-copy sharing with customer-owned data platforms. Databricks was already available; BDC Connect for Google BigQuery was planned for the first half of 2026.

Revenue Intelligence is the application CX customers watch: SAP positions it for sales, service and the wider revenue process. In October 2025 it was a preview, without named data products for SAP Sales Cloud V2 or Service Cloud V2.

What happened since: by May 2026 SAP named Google BigQuery among its existing BDC Connect partners. We have not seen a public SAP source that declares Revenue Intelligence generally available or lists the Sales Cloud V2 objects it reads. Ask SAP for the current status in writing before you plan around it.

November 2025: TechEd, SAP Snowflake and SAP-RPT-1

At TechEd in Berlin SAP added Snowflake to the picture:

• SAP Snowflake, a Snowflake environment sold by SAP as an extension of BDC, planned for general availability in the first quarter of 2026.
• SAP BDC Connect for Snowflake, the zero-copy bridge to a Snowflake account you already run, planned for the first half of 2026.
• SAP-RPT-1, a model for predictions on tabular business data, with an open-source variant.
• Knowledge graph generation in SAP HANA Cloud, planned for the first quarter of 2026.

What happened since: in May 2026 SAP listed Snowflake as an existing BDC Connect partner, next to Databricks, Google BigQuery and Microsoft Fabric. The pattern from TechEd held: SAP sells managed versions of popular platforms and builds zero-copy bridges to the same platforms when you run them yourself. For most mid-market companies that means one rule: connect the platform your data team already uses, and do not add a second one without a use case.

March and April 2026: Swiss region, Reltio and Capacity Units

Three changes in spring 2026 matter more to Swiss companies than any keynote:

• Switzerland. In March 2026 BDC went live on Microsoft Azure in Switzerland with EU Access. For data residency questions under the revised FADP, that removed the most common reason to wait.
• Master data. SAP announced the acquisition of Reltio, a cloud master data management platform.
• Pricing. SAP now prices BDC on Capacity Units. BDC capacity is consumed by components such as Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Databricks and BDC Connect, and intelligent applications are licensed on top. SAP’s pricing page describes the model. The open question from the launch, “what will it cost”, finally has a structure; run the numbers for your own use case before any negotiation.

May 2026: Sapphire, BDC at the centre of SAP Business AI

At Sapphire 2026 SAP placed BDC at the core of its Business AI platform, next to SAP BTP and SAP Business AI. SAP’s BDC announcement lists:

• SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Master Data Governance as core components of BDC.
• Reltio, with the acquisition completed, bringing multi-domain master data management into BDC.
• Joule agents that search and create data products, build planning and analytical models, surface insights and generate SAP Analytics Cloud stories.
• SAP BDC Connect for Amazon Athena, with general availability planned for the second half of 2026.
• Existing BDC Connect partners: Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery and Microsoft Fabric.

What happened since: five months are too short to judge the agents. The structural move is clear, though: master data governance now sits in the same platform as the data products that depend on it. That is where most cross-system analytics fail, so it is the right place for SAP to invest.

Where things stand in October 2026

Topic	Announced	Status as far as SAP has published
Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW in BDC	February 2025	Available
SAP Databricks	February 2025	Available
Finance, People, Cloud ERP Intelligence	2025	Generally available since October 2025
Revenue Intelligence (formerly Customer Intelligence)	May 2025	Last public status: restricted preview
BDC Connect for Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Fabric	October 2025 to May 2026	Named as existing partners in May 2026
BDC Connect for Amazon Athena	May 2026	Planned for H2 2026
BDC on Azure in Switzerland	March 2026	Available
HANA Cloud and MDG as core components	May 2026	Announced as part of BDC
Capacity Unit pricing	Spring 2026	In place

Check the current list with SAP for your region and release. A line on a slide is not a service in your tenant.

What this means for SAP CX customers

Twenty months of announcements changed a lot on the ERP side and little on the CX side. If you run SAP Sales Cloud V2 or Service Cloud V2 next to S/4HANA Public Cloud:

1. Start on the ERP side. S/4HANA data products and Cloud ERP and Finance Intelligence are the most mature parts of BDC.
2. Build the CX bridge yourself. Bring the Sales Cloud V2 and Service Cloud V2 objects your question needs into Datasphere, through replication or SAP Integration Suite. Our post on Sales Cloud V2 and BDC integration patterns covers the mechanics.
3. Fix the keys first. Accounts and products must match between CRM and ERP. Revenue Intelligence will need that too, whenever SAP ships it.
4. Pick one question. Pipeline versus booked orders, or margin per customer after service costs. Our five mistakes when starting with BDC shows what goes wrong without one.

If you are deciding on the compute layer, read SAP Databricks or your own Databricks?. If you are coming from Datasphere or BW, start with BDC and Datasphere: what changes, what stays.

Next step

Spadoom delivers the ERP core and the CX stack with one team, so we see both ends of the join BDC is meant to close. If you want to know which of these milestones matter for your landscape, see our SAP Business Data Cloud page and book a short call.

FAQ

When did SAP announce Business Data Cloud?

On 13 February 2025, together with a Databricks partnership. BDC brings SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BW and SAP Databricks together with SAP-managed data products and intelligent applications on top.

What changed in SAP Business Data Cloud between 2025 and 2026?

SAP renamed insight apps to intelligent applications (May 2025), made Finance, People and Cloud ERP Intelligence generally available (October 2025), opened BDC to customer-owned Databricks, Snowflake, Google BigQuery and Microsoft Fabric through BDC Connect, brought BDC to Microsoft Azure in Switzerland (March 2026), moved pricing to Capacity Units (spring 2026) and made SAP HANA Cloud and SAP Master Data Governance core components (May 2026).

Can SAP Business Data Cloud run in Switzerland?

Yes. Since March 2026 BDC is available on Microsoft Azure in Switzerland with EU Access, according to Microsoft. Check the region of your own tenant with SAP before you put personal data into it.

Are there SAP-managed data products for SAP Sales Cloud V2 and Service Cloud V2?

Check the data-product catalogue for your release. SAP’s first data products covered S/4HANA, SAP Ariba and SAP SuccessFactors, and Revenue Intelligence, which targets sales and service data, was still in restricted preview in SAP’s last public status we can cite. Where no CX data product exists, Sales Cloud V2 data reaches BDC through replication or SAP Integration Suite into Datasphere.