Cloud-Native AI and Big Data Integration in Enterprise Platforms: Architecture, Security, and Governance

The convergence of cloud-native artificial intelligence services, large-scale data platforms, and enterprise systems of record is reshaping how organisations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plan their digital transformation programmes. SAP S/4HANA and similar enterprise resource planning systems remain the authoritative source of transactional data; cloud-native big data platforms accumulate the broader analytical and operational data on which intelligent applications depend; and AI services, both vendor-supplied and customer-built, generate inferences, recommendations, and automations that are increasingly embedded in business processes. The integration of these three components is not a single product decision; it is an architectural problem that spans data, model, identity, security, and governance. This paper proposes a reference integration architecture that connects enterprise SAP estates, cloud-native big data platforms, and cloud-native AI services in a manner consistent with the Saudi regulatory perimeter and the National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence. The architecture is structured around five planes (data, model, integration, identity and trust, observability) and is supported by an explicit governance envelope covering data lineage, model lifecycle, bias and fairness, and audit-readiness. The architecture is grounded in the SAP Business Technology Platform documentation, the AWS machine-learning and analytics service guides, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and the Saudi regulatory perimeter set by the Communications, Space and Technology Commission, the National Cybersecurity Authority, and the Saudi Data and AI Authority. The paper presents the planes, discusses governance considerations including generative AI specific concerns (prompt and response governance, hallucination mitigation, intellectual property, content safety), and identifies open research directions including the integration of generative AI capabilities with audit-grade enterprise data. This is the third paper in a four-paper portfolio on cloud-era enterprise platforms for public-sector digital transformation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The contribution complements earlier papers on hybrid cloud reference architecture for SAP (Zenodo: 10.5281/zenodo.20142321) and cloud migration strategy for SAP (Zenodo: 10.5281/zenodo.20142514), and is itself complemented by a companion paper on workforce readiness for the cloud-era enterprise.