内容来源：https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/05/sap-bets-1-16b-on-18-month-old-german-ai-lab-and-says-yes-to-nemoclaw/

内容总结：

SAP斥资超5亿美元收购德国AI创企Prior Labs 打造结构化数据AI实验室

据欧洲软件巨头SAP周一宣布，已收购德国人工智能初创公司Prior Labs，交易金额未公开。消息人士透露，这是一笔“几乎全现金”交易，创始团队获得超过5亿美元现金，堪称“健康退出”。SAP计划在未来四年内投入约10亿欧元（约合11.6亿美元），将其打造为专注于结构化数据（即企业常用的表格与数据库）的AI实验室。

Prior Labs成立仅18个月，深耕表格基础模型（TFM），这类AI能直接对表格和数据库中的数据进行预测，比大语言模型更适合企业场景。对于SAP而言，其财务、人力资源、采购等核心软件均依赖数据库，TFM无疑是更优选择。目前该团队的开源模型下载量已突破300万次。

值得注意的是，SAP在AI领域正采取“攻守兼备”策略。进攻端，该公司此前已投资OpenAI竞争对手Anthropic、Aleph Alpha及Cohere，并自研关系型预训练模型SAP-RPT-1。防守端，SAP明确禁止未经授权的AI代理（如OpenClaw）通过其API访问产品，仅允许“SAP认可架构”——包括其自研的Joule Agents（测试中）及英伟达的NemoClaw。

分析认为，对于SAP这样的行业巨头，AI既是威胁也是机遇。首席财务官Dominik Asam直言：“关键在于SAP能否快速将这些技术融入研发体系，保持相对规模优势。”随着Salesforce等竞争对手采取更开放的代理策略，SAP的“严控生态”路线能否在AI浪潮中奏效，仍有待市场检验。

中文翻译：

去年二月，OpenAI首席运营官曾坦言：“我们尚未真正看到人工智能渗透到企业业务流程中。”但对于企业软件巨头SAP而言，这一问题仍是重中之重——该公司股价在2026年大幅下跌，部分原因正是所谓的“SaaS末日”。周一，这家欧洲巨头宣布将收购德国人工智能初创公司Prior Labs，具体金额未予披露。待监管部门批准后，SAP计划在未来四年内对该业务投资10亿欧元（约合11.6亿美元），将其打造成一个专注于结构化数据（即企业信息通常所在的表格与数据库）的人工智能实验室。

SAP拒绝透露此次收购的具体金额，但知情人士向Pathfounders透露，这是一次回报丰厚的退出：交易“几乎全部以现金支付”，初创公司创始人Frank Hutter、Noah Hollmann和Sauraj Gambhir将直接获得超过5亿美元的现金。这三位联合创始人仅在18个月前共同创立了Prior Labs，专注于表格基础模型——这种人工智能模型能够从表格和数据库中的数据进行预测。与语言模型相比，这或许更适合企业需求。对于SAP而言更是如此，其广泛应用于财务、人力资源、采购和费用管理等领域的软件产品都依赖其数据库。

然而，随着科技行业迈向智能体人工智能，这家德国市值最高的公司似乎也在采取防御姿态。据《The Information》率先报道，在努力打造自己的人工智能实验室的同时，SAP已屏蔽了OpenClaw及任何未经其明确授权的其他智能体技术。在回应置评请求时，SAP的媒体部门将TechCrunch引向公司最新的API政策，该政策明确表示，SAP“禁止”人工智能智能体通过其API访问其产品，但“SAP认可的架构”除外。

被认可的架构当然包括SAP自身的产品Joule Agents，该产品仍处于测试阶段，允许客户创建自己的智能体。英伟达也在3月宣布，SAP的Joule支持英伟达的Agent Toolkit——这是一款用于管理智能体的软件。该工具包正是英伟达面向企业、注重安全的OpenClaw竞争对手NemoClaw的基础。因此，SAP客户将被授权使用NemoClaw智能体。

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对于像SAP这样的大型老牌企业而言，人工智能既是威胁也是机遇。“关键在于SAP能否尽快将这些技术融入我们的研发组合，以保持相对规模经济优势，”SAP首席财务官Dominik Asam今年1月对CNBC表示。

SAP并未坐以待毙。这家德国公司投资了开发大中小型语言模型的生成式人工智能公司：2023年，它支持了OpenAI的竞争对手Anthropic，以及Aleph Alpha和Cohere——这两家公司目前计划合并，以打造“一个全球性的人工智能巨头”。SAP还开发了SAP-RPT-1，这是一种关系型预训练变换器模型。“早在初期，SAP就意识到企业人工智能领域最大的未开发机遇并非大型语言模型，而是为支撑全球企业运转的结构化数据而构建的人工智能，”SAP首席技术官Philipp Herzig在一份声明中宣称。

但收购Prior Labs是实现这一目标的捷径。其TabPFN模型系列在开发者中获得了广泛关注。在一篇关于此次交易的博文中，该初创公司的创始人表示，其开源模型已被下载超过300万次。在一份新闻稿中，SAP承诺Prior Labs将继续维护开源版本：“该实验室将作为一个独立单位运营，以确保研究速度，同时SAP将提供长期投资，并通过SAP AI Core、SAP Business Data Cloud以及Joule智能体层，为其在整个SAP产品组合中的产品化提供直接路径。”

SAP与这家总部位于德国弗莱堡的初创公司希望，这笔投资能催生出能够从表格中抓取数据，并将其与语言、推理和领域知识相结合的表格基础模型。不仅如此，创始人兼首席执行官Frank Hutter在X平台上发帖庆祝道，他们希望Prior Labs在SAP的“巨大推动”下，能够成为一个新的“全球领先的、面向结构化数据的人工智能前沿实验室——扎根欧洲，保持开放”。2025年2月，这家初创公司曾在由Balderton Capital领投的种子轮前融资中筹集了约930万美元，高于竞争对手Neuralk-AI，但远低于今年2月以2.55亿美元A轮融资从隐身模式中走出的Fundamental公司。

在X平台上，Balderton合伙人James Wise称Prior Labs被收购是“德国历史上最大的风险投资成果之一”。至于SAP，其股价目前略有上涨。与此同时，SAP对允许进入其生态系统的智能体要求非常严格。这与同样陷入“SaaS末日”的另一家老牌公司Salesforce采取了截然不同的策略。后者通过其全新的Headless 360架构，允许企业自行选择自己的智能体，包括OpenClaw（如果他们愿意的话）。

英文来源：

By OpenAI COO’s own admission last February, “we have not yet really seen AI penetrate enterprise business processes.” But for enterprise software giant SAP, whose stock has dropped significantly in 2026 in part from the “SaaSpocalypse,” the issue is still front and center.
On Monday, the European heavyweight announced its intention to acquire German AI startup Prior Labs for an undisclosed amount. Pending regulatory approval, SAP plans to invest €1 billion (approximately $1.16 billion) into the business over the next four years to grow it into an AI lab focused on structured data — the tables and databases where enterprise information typically sits.
SAP declined to disclose how much it spent on the acquisition itself, but sources told Pathfounders that this was a healthy exit: an “almost all cash” deal, with well over half a billion dollars in cash up front for the startup’s founders — Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann, and Sauraj Gambhir.
The trio co-founded Prior Labs just 18 months ago with a focus on tabular foundation models (TFMs) — AI models that can make predictions from data that sits in tables and databases. This is potentially a better fit for enterprises than language models. It is certainly a better fit for SAP, whose widely used software products for accounting, HR, procurement and expense management rely on its database.
However, Germany’s most valuable company also seems be playing defense as the tech industry marches toward agentic AI. While it works to create its own AI lab, the company has blocked OpenClaw and any other agent tech that it has not explicitly authorized, The Information was first to spot.
In response to a request for comment, SAP’s press department referred TechCrunch to the company’s latest API policy, which does say that SAP “prohibits” AI agents from accessing its products through its API except for those that are “SAP-endorsed architectures.”
Authorized architectures of course include SAP’s own offering, Joule Agents, still in beta, which lets customers create their own agents. Nvidia also announced in March that SAP’s Joule supports Nvidia’s Agent Toolkit, which is software for managing agents. This toolkit is the foundation for Nvidia’s enterprise-ready, security-focused OpenClaw competitor, NemoClaw. Hence SAP customers will be authorized to use NemoClaw agents.
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For a giant incumbent player like SAP, AI is both a threat and an opportunity. “It’s all about how quickly [we can] as SAP actually also embark [on] these technologies in our R&D portfolio to keep the relative economies of scale advantage,” CFO Dominik Asam told CNBC in January.
SAP hasn’t been sitting on its hands. The German company invested in generative AI companies that develop language models large and small: In 2023, it backed OpenAI rival Anthropic — as well as Aleph Alpha and Cohere, which now intend to merge to form “a global AI powerhouse.”
It had also developed SAP-RPT-1, a relational pretrained transformer model. “Early on, SAP recognized that the greatest untapped opportunity in enterprise AI wasn’t large language models; it was AI built for the structured data that runs the world’s businesses,” SAP CTO Philipp Herzig declared in a statement.
But Prior Labs’ acquisition is a significant shortcut in that direction. Its TabPFN model series has experienced a lot of traction among developers. In a blog post on the deal, the startup’s founders said that its open source models have been downloaded over three million times.
In a press release, SAP promised that Prior Labs will maintain the open source versions: “The lab will operate as 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.”
SAP and the startup headquartered in Freiburg, Germany, hope that this investment will lead to TFMs that can grab data in the tables where it lives, combine that with language, reasoning, and domain knowledge.
More than that, they hope that Prior Labs, with this “massive boost” from SAP, can become a new “globally-leading frontier AI lab for structured data — in Europe, in the open,” founder and CEO Frank Hutter celebrated in a post on X.
In February 2025, the startup had previously raised some $9.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Balderton Capital — more than competitor Neuralk-AI, but a lot less than Fundamental, which emerged out of stealth with a $255 million Series A in February.
In a post on X, Balderton partner James Wise called Prior Labs’ acquisition “one of Germany’s biggest ever venture outcomes.” As for SAP, its stock is currently trading slightly upwards.
Meanwhile, SAP is being very strict as to the agents it will allow into its ecosystem. This is a wildly different approach than Salesforce, another incumbent caught in the SaaSpocalypse. It is allowing enterprise to choose their own agents, including OpenClaw if they so wish, with its new Headless 360 architecture.