AI, cloud and platforms: SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Business Data Cloud

E3 magazine will be organizing the Steampunk and BTP Summit future congress in Heidelberg for the third time in 2026. The future ERP from SAP based on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and the new SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) will be discussed. This platform-based ERP will be organized as a Composable Enterprise.

IT platforms offer a dual ERP concept: maximum business flexibility and agility paired with maximum standardization and compatibility. The meta-levels for this are AI and cloud computing.

Steampunk

Steampunk is an internal SAP term for the further development of its own programming language Abap. At the same time, steampunk stands for a genre term that categorizes the new ERP world. Steampunk is a mechanical world in which future scenarios are depicted transparently. Whether the future will be shaped as numerous steampunk images prophesize may be doubtful. But steampunk embodies a transparent and open approach to technology. The viewer is confronted with the mechanics and functions of a visionary world. No secret remains hidden here. Transparency seems to be the order of the day.

Steampunk is therefore a counter-design to current AI. Who knows the secrets of ChatGPT? Not even the inventors of neural networks, machine and deep learning and large language models can explain exactly what goes on inside AI machines. But the results are astounding.

Artificial intelligence

It is important to find a framework for the deployment and use of AI. If AI agents take over numerous tasks and functions of a business organization in the future, then ERP needs an IT platform for this - a framework that provides order, structures and rules.

An ERP world without orchestration would be counterproductive and AI agents from different providers would fight for a supposed claim to leadership. A platform like SAP BTP does not have to be "artificially intelligent" itself, but BTP provides a framework where AI is used. This AI functionality is realized with SAP Joule, the GenAI Hub and the SAP programming language Abap. BTP and the new SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) are therefore the foundation of a composable ERP. This concept is under discussion in Heidelberg.

AI needs a framework for efficient ERP use. IT platforms can provide this framework. The rules of the game still need to be evaluated. The steampunk concept is an AI discourse. It is a language game, as the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 to 1951) once defined it. Participation in the language game is essential for the further development of Composable ERP. The rules of the ERP discourse are the specifications for AI agents based on the SAP IT platforms BTP and BDC.

Cloud computing

The architecture for SAP BTP and BDC with the AI meta-level is cloud computing. Steampunk is SAP's own concept for transferring the Abap programming language from an on-prem infrastructure to the cloud. At the same time, steampunk is an approach and language game for maximum transparency and agility. In principle, cloud computing is an open and standardized IT architecture. IT platforms, AI and cloud computing as well as the steampunk discourse are sustainably intertwined. (pmf)

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