{"id":620387,"date":"2025-12-08T16:24:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/620387\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:24:19","slug":"ibm-extends-ai-push-with-11bn-takeover-of-confluent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/620387\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM extends AI push with $11bn takeover of Confluent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n

Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

IBM will acquire data streaming platform Confluent in an $11bn deal that extends its push to reposition itself around artificial intelligence technology.<\/p>\n

The deal, announced on Monday, valued Confluent at $31 a share \u2014 a roughly 34 per cent premium on Friday\u2019s $23.14 closing price in New York. The stock jumped to just under $30 in early trading, while IBM added 2 per cent to about $314 and extended gains this year to 42 per cent.<\/p>\n

The deal marks a significant moment for IBM<\/a>, which said Confluent was a \u201cnatural fit\u201d that would aid its expansion into cloud and wider AI solutions.<\/p>\n

Arvind Krishna, IBM\u2019s chief executive, said the deal would allow his company to \u201cdeploy generative and agentic AI better and faster\u201d.<\/p>\n

The agreement will also allow IBM to streamline its product offering due to overlapping technologies, while expanding Confluent\u2019s services to a wider range of customers. It follows IBM\u2019s takeover of cloud software provider HashiCorp for $6.4bn earlier this year. <\/p>\n

California-based Confluent has more than 6,500 customers and operates an open-source data streaming platform that \u201cconnects, processes and governs\u201d data and events in real time, the companies said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

It was founded in 2014 and went public at $36 a share in 2021. Confluent\u2019s stock hit a record $93-plus the following year but has subsequently struggled amid competitive pressures and a slowdown in cloud growth. <\/p>\n

After the company said in July it had lowered its outlook, shares dived by about 30 per cent despite a broader rally of AI stocks. <\/p>\n

David O\u2019Hara, managing director at MKI Global Partners, said: \u201cConfluent sits naturally inside IBM\u2019s software segment alongside Red Hat and HashiCorp, and fills a clear gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the competition from rivals including Azure, Google and AWS, he expected regulators to see the deal as IBM bulking up rather than as a \u201cmove to monopolise data streaming\u201d.<\/p>\n

IBM said it expected the deal to boost profits within 12 months of closing in mid-2026 and to improve its free cash flow after two years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-620387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115684878763931003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}