IBM is in advanced talks to acquire data infrastructure company Confluent $11 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The deal for Confluent, an open-source platform used to process massive streams of real-time data, from bank transactions to website clicks, could be announced as early as Monday.
IBM will pay $31 per share in cash for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent, according to a release. The transaction is expected to close by the middle of 2026. Shares of Confluent closed at $23.14 on Friday.
“With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a release. IBM said this deal will strengthen its artificial intelligence offerings.
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According to financial services firm Wedbush, this is a “strong move” from IBM that adds more data processing capabilities to its hybrid cloud ecosystem and is a natural fit to help eliminate data silos for powering AI. “We loudly applaud this deal as Arvind takes IBM further into the AI Revolution with more acquisitions likely ahead,” analysts said in a note.
In October, Reuters reported that Confluent is weighing a potential sale and has tapped an investment bank to manage the process after drawing interest from prospective buyers. According to Reuters, IBM’s acquisition strategy remains a key focus to meet investors’ expectations. Last year, the company bought HashiCorp in a $6.4 billion deal, expanding its focus on software in order to meet rising AI demands. IBM had sharpened its focus on software under Krishna aiming to capitalize on its spending on cloud services.
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IBM also recently announced a partnership with the AI startup Anthropic, along with several other product updates to boost the use of generative AI by businesses. This strategic partnership will be aimed at integrating Anthropic’s advanced AI language models, known as Claude, into IBM’s enterprise software ecosystem. At the center of this partnership is designed to revolutionize software development by boosting productivity, enhancing security, and ensuring robust governance across IBM’s platforms.
IBM has also announced it has built a new experimental quantum computing chip called Loon that demonstrates it hit a key milestone toward making useful quantum computers before the end of the decade. Loon remains in its early stages, and IBM did not disclose when outsiders can test it. But the company also announced a chip named “Nighthawk” that will be available at the end of this year.