Susana Schwartz
IBM strikes $11 billion deal to acquire Confluent
In one of IBM’s largest acquisitions since its $34 billion purchase of Red Hat in 2019, IBM this morning boosted its cloud computing strategy with an $11 billion acquisition of data streaming platform Confluent.
In a bid to create a “smart data platform” for enterprise generative AI, Confluent’s Apache Kafka open-source enterprise data streaming platform will help IBM manage the massive, real-time data streams that define AI models. Because enterprise data is spread across public and private clouds, data centers and many technology providers, IBM hopes the deal will help enterprises more effectively integrate their data into AI models.
It’s a deal that aligns with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna’s ongoing vision to develop recurring revenue streams from high-margin, open-source software, as is the case with Red Hat and now Confluent. In the announcement, Krishna said, “IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environments, applications and APIs.”
With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM plans to enable end-to-end integration of applications, analytics, data systems and AI agent, which will “drive intelligence and resilience in hybrid cloud environments.”
Susana Schwartz
Technology Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top Stories
$4 billion forecast for Telco B2B AI: Telcos’ existing infrastructure puts them in a uniquely valuable position, with data centers, edge networks, customer data, and intelligent services to drive a 65% CAGR through 2030.
Celona espouses private 5G for AI: Private 5G is known to be complex and slow to deploy, but Celona believes it can become the “new connectivity substrate for AI, edge computing, and mission-critical operations.”
AWS focus on custom AI chips: In his re:Invent 2025 keynote, AWS CEO Matt Garman committed to silicon development, noting that in addition to continued work with Nvidia, he intends to offer a range of accelerators as model complexity grows.
AI Today: What You Need to Know
IBM acquires Confluent: IBM announced it has acquired data streaming platform Confluent in a deal worth $11 billion, strengthening its AI portfolio with access to Confluent customers Anthropic, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Snowflake.
Scouting under-the-hood AI players: BlackRock is doubling down on the next wave of AI infrastructure, putting chipmakers, energy firms, and materials suppliers at the heart of the coming boom as global AI demand surges.
Nvidia says U.S. AI construction too slow: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, outlined the challenges he sees C-suite executives navigating in their race against China.
OpeanAI, NEXTDC ink deal for DC: NEXTDC said on Friday it has an MoU with OpenAI to build a $233.37 million 550MW hyperscale AI campus and graphics processing unit supercluster in Sydney.
Applied Digital leads funding for Corinitis: In-chip cooling company Corintis pushes coolant through tiny channels etched into chips. The company raised $25 million (for a total of $58 million) in a funding round led by Applied Digital.
Mini-fridges on a nanoscale: A new ion-based cooling strategy has been developed by the University of Osaka. By driving the flow of ions through nanoscale channels, an electric current is passed through a material for cooling.
