IBM is acquiring Confluent for $11 billion as it seeks to bolster its data offerings

IBM is buying data infrastructure company Confluent for $11 billion in cash in an effort to bolster its data and automation products as more companies move their technology operations to the cloud and deploy artificial intelligence technology.

The tech giant said it would offer $31 per Confluent share, about 50% more than the smaller company’s shares closed for on Friday, before news of the deal.

Confluent provides a platform that helps organizations manage real-time data flows, a use case that is growing in demand as more companies develop and deploy AI products, which require significant back-and-forth data processing for inference.

IBM said Confluent will complement its existing data and automation products, as well as enhance its existing offerings across AI, automation, data and consulting. The company expects the deal to add to EBITDA and free cash flow in the two years following the closing of the deal.

This is the latest in a series of deals that IBM has struck in recent months as it seeks to cash in on the AI ​​boom, although Confluent’s $11 billion valuation would be the tech giant’s biggest purchase in years, following its acquisition of HashiCorp in 2024.

In October, IBM signed a deal with AI lab Anthropic to deploy the Big Claude language model in some of its products; It has partnered with AMD to develop a new computing architecture that combines quantum systems and chips specialized in artificial intelligence; It acquired data analytics startup Seek AI in June.