Confluent, Inc.

Money Moves

Acquired target; data streaming platform at center of AI data infrastructure race

IBM has agreed to acquire Confluent, the data‑streaming company built around Apache Kafka, in an all‑cash deal for about $11 billion, or $31 per share, a roughly 34% premium to its last close. IBM says Confluent's real‑time event streaming and governance capabilities will anchor a new "smart data platform" that connects, cleans, and orchestrates data across hybrid clouds for generative and agentic AI applications. The deal positions IBM as both an AI model provider and the owner of the data plumbing that makes enterprise AI work.

Updated May 10