Cross-tenant connection between Databricks and Power BI

Hi BiancaCiui , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Yes, Power BI in one tenant can connect to Azure Databricks in another tenant. Power BI uses Azure AD for authentication and Azure AD supports cross-tenant identities. Power BI only needs two things, the Databricks endpoint and an identity that exists in the Databricks tenant. That identity can be a service principal (best option) or a guest user.

Create a service principal in the Databricks tenant, give it access to the Databricks workspace and SQL warehouse and use that identity from Power BI. If Databricks is publicly accessible, no gateway is needed and everything works over HTTPS. If Databricks is on a private network (VNet / Private Link), you need network connectivity between tenants and usually an on-premises data gateway. This is supported but adds cost and operational complexity.

The main downsides are governance and reliability. You now manage identities and access across two tenants and if the service principal or network breaks, all reports break.

Connect Power BI Desktop to Azure Databricks - Azure Databricks | Microsoft Learn

Configure service principals on Azure Databricks for Power BI - Azure Databricks | Microsoft Learn