SAP's Data Platform Opens Up to Iceberg as Its €24.1 Billion Cloud Backlog Faces the Real Test

SAP is widening the pipeline that feeds its AI agents. On Thursday the Walldorf-based group unveiled fresh capabilities for its Business Data Cloud, built around native support for Apache Iceberg and a universal catalog running on Apache Polaris. The move targets the lakehouse and data-fabric layers of the platform — the plumbing that determines what enterprise AI can actually reach.

That announcement slots into a broader product push rather than standing alone. On 27 October, at SAP TechEd, the company had already flagged enhancements to the SAP Business AI Platform. Thursday's release attacks a different bottleneck: not the assistant itself, but the corporate data those assistants are meant to work with.

Operating infrastructure is getting attention too. SAP and NTT disclosed on Wednesday a planned collaboration covering Sovereign Cloud and SAP Business AI, with the two firms intending to pair SAP Sovereign Cloud On-Site with NTT-managed infrastructure and operations. Both initiatives address preconditions for AI deployment — access to data on one side, the running of applications on the other. The NTT arrangement remains a plan; no joint operation has yet begun.

A sector-wide chill meets a bullish chorus

Investors, meanwhile, have been weighing two very different signals. SAP shares came under pre-market pressure on Thursday after disappointing quarterly reports from ServiceNow and Fortinet weighed on the software sector. Media coverage suggested the US results stoked fears that artificial intelligence could erode established software business models — a concern that swept across the industry and caught SAP in its wake.

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That sector-level anxiety should not be confused with SAP's own numbers. Several analysts responded to the company's latest quarterly figures by lifting their price targets, and the two signals need not contradict each other: the upgrades reflected SAP's business performance, while the subsequent selling pressure expressed doubts about AI's longer-term effect on software as a whole. Price targets, of course, are estimates, not promises about where the stock goes next.

The order book as counterweight

The operating evidence arrived roughly two weeks ago. SAP reported a current cloud backlog of €24.1 billion, up 28% — or 26% at constant currencies. Cloud revenue climbed 26% over the same period. Separating the sector's jitters from actual demand is precisely the point: what SAP booked is a measurable figure, while the AI disruption thesis remains a projection.

Guidance adds another layer. For 2026, SAP put cloud revenue at the upper end of its €25.8–26.2 billion range at constant currencies, with cloud and software revenue also guided to the top of their respective ranges. The company cautioned at the time that growth in the current cloud backlog is likely to slow slightly in the fourth quarter.

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Buybacks continue ahead of the January update

Capital returns have been running in parallel. Under its ongoing share buyback programme, SAP repurchased 42,848 of its own shares during the week of 19–23 October, according to the notification dated 27 October. Such purchases are a standalone capital measure — they say nothing about the risks of technological change, which is why the cloud outlook and its execution carry more weight for judging the operating story.

The next confirmed checkpoint comes on 21 January 2027, when SAP publishes results for the fourth quarter and the full 2026 financial year. Until then, the new data capabilities make clear how SAP intends to support AI agents in practice. Whether that build-out shows up in the business figures is the question shareholders will keep asking.

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