SAP and Fresenius are partnering to create a sovereign AI platform designed specifically for healthcare, aiming to bring secure, compliant data processing directly into clinical environments.
As AI adoption accelerates across the medical sector, data governance remains a major obstacle. Public cloud infrastructures often struggle to meet strict regulatory and sovereignty requirements, particularly in Europe. This collaboration is intended to close that gap by building a controlled environment where AI can operate without compromising patient data or national regulations.
Turning healthcare AI into production infrastructure
Rather than focusing on isolated pilots, SAP and Fresenius want to establish a digital backbone that supports AI across entire healthcare systems. The platform is designed as an open, integrated ecosystem, allowing hospitals and care providers to deploy AI tools at scale while maintaining full control over sensitive data.
Fresenius CEO Michael Sen described the initiative as a step toward making data and AI practical, everyday tools for clinicians. By prioritising security, simplicity, and scalability, the platform is intended to reduce administrative burden and free up more time for patient care.
A sovereign technical foundation
The platform is built on SAP Business AI and the SAP Business Data Cloud, providing a compliant foundation for running AI models in regulated healthcare environments. This infrastructure is designed to manage health data responsibly while supporting automated and AI-driven workflows across clinical operations.
A key challenge the partnership aims to solve is data fragmentation. Through SAP’s “AnyEMR” strategy, the platform supports interoperability between hospital information systems, electronic medical records, and other medical applications. Open standards such as HL7 FHIR play a central role in enabling this connectivity.
By unifying disparate systems, Fresenius can develop AI-supported solutions that improve efficiency across the entire care chain, from administration to treatment planning.
Investment signals long-term ambition
Both companies plan to invest a mid three-digit million euro amount over the medium term to support AI-driven digital transformation across German and European healthcare systems. This includes internal technology development as well as joint investments in startups and scaleups that can extend the platform’s capabilities.
SAP CEO Christian Klein said the partnership is intended to establish new benchmarks for data sovereignty, security, and innovation in healthcare, while enabling Fresenius to fully leverage AI-supported processes to improve patient outcomes.
Why sovereign AI matters for healthcare
This collaboration reflects a broader shift in how AI is being deployed in highly regulated industries. For sectors like healthcare, innovation increasingly depends on sovereign infrastructure that satisfies compliance requirements without slowing progress.
As healthcare organisations move beyond experimentation, initiatives like this suggest the next phase of AI adoption will be defined less by model performance and more by trust, governance, and long-term scalability.
