The strategic partnership between SAS and Microsoft is entering a new phase, focusing on one of the biggest challenges of modern AI: accessing data while maintaining privacy. SAS has made its SAS Data Maker tool available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, offering companies a solution to the shortage of secure training data.
The move is a direct result of SAS’s 2024 acquisition of UK-based Hazy, a pioneer in synthetic data generation. The integration of Hazy’s technology has allowed the US analytics giant to create a tool that replicates the statistical, relational and temporal properties of real-world datasets without revealing any sensitive information. In practice, this means that organisations can train and test new artificial intelligence models, bypassing legal and ethical barriers related to RODO or corporate confidentiality.
SAS Data Maker stands out from the competition with its ‘no-code’ approach. Users can generate data using a graphical interface, which democratises access to advanced techniques such as differential privacy without the need for programmers. The software supports complex structures, including time series processing and operations on multiple tables simultaneously. An important element of the platform is the built-in quality control mechanisms, which allow the fidelity of synthetic data to be visually compared with its original counterparts before being used in a production environment.
The debut of Data Maker in Microsoft’s shop is another piece of a wider puzzle. Azure already offers SAS Viya Workbench, a development environment that supports model building in SAS, R and Python languages. The presence of both tools in a single cloud ecosystem is expected to make it easier for enterprises to integrate new solutions into existing workflows without the need for costly technical adjustments.
As announced, however, the exclusivity for Microsoft is temporary. SAS plans to make Data Maker available on other cloud platforms and to integrate it more deeply with SAS’ flagship Viya analytics platform, confirming the company’s desire to maintain flexibility in multi-cloud environments.
