SAS has acquired Hazy’s software assets to expand its generative AI and synthetic data offerings.

Analytics specialist SAS announces the acquisition of Hazy’s key software assets. With this strategic acquisition, SAS further expands its extensive data and AI portfolio and provides customers with access to essential and timely synthetic data generation capabilities. This is becoming increasingly important as the use of AI increases rapidly.

AI capabilities

With the acquisition of Hazy’s software technology, SAS is integrating expanded functionalities for generating synthetic data into its portfolio. The company emphasizes that this technology allows companies to strengthen data analytics, ensure data protection and accelerate the development of AI applications. Hazy’s technology will be integrated into SAS Data Maker, a tool launching in 2024 that helps companies address data challenges without compromising user privacy.

According to Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, the integration of Hazy technology offers customers new opportunities to perform simulations and analysis on synthetic data. Goodnight said Hazy has extensive expertise in synthetic data technology, helping SAS customers better leverage data for experiments and modeling that were previously difficult to perform.

Privacy and reliability

The synthetic data market is growing rapidly, particularly in sectors where privacy is critical, such as healthcare and finance. IDC’s Kathy Lange confirms that synthetic data addresses data scarcity and privacy issues while improving the accuracy and bias control of AI models. SAS CTO Bryan Harris expects the use of synthetic data in enterprise AI applications to increase significantly, which he believes will give SAS an advantage in providing secure and scalable AI solutions.

Synthetic data that mimics statistical patterns of real data without revealing personal or sensitive information reduces the risks associated with real data. For SAS customers, this means improved privacy and security in their AI projects, as well as opportunities to generate new data quickly and cost-effectively. SAS believes this solution will help companies save time, reduce costs and develop reliable AI applications. The improvements will be rolled out globally and an initial preview is planned for early 2025.