IBM and Confluent today announced a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all outstanding shares of Confluent at US $31 per share in cash, valuing the deal at approximately US $11 billion in enterprise value. The acquisition is expected to close by mid-2026.
What Confluent Adds
Real-time data streaming at scale: Confluent offers a mature, cloud-native platform for streaming data, event processing, and real-time pipelines.
Data-in-motion for AI and agentic workloads: As enterprises increasingly adopt generative-AI and agentic systems, the need for fresh, live data, as opposed to static batches, becomes critical. Confluent’s streaming platform enables data to flow seamlessly between applications, databases, cloud environments, analytics engines, and AI agents. IBM calls this combination a “smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”
Hybrid-cloud and legacy-system compatibility: Through Confluent’s support for hybrid cloud, private cloud, and even legacy mainframes (such as IBM’s zSystems), IBM can integrate new-generation data pipelines into enterprises’ existing infrastructures, a key advantage for large organizations with legacy systems alongside modern cloud deployments
With this acquisition, IBM and Confluent will help businesses connect applications, analytics, data systems, and AI tools. This will make it easier to use smart technology and keep systems strong in hybrid cloud environments.
Voices from IBM and Confluent
Arvind Krishna, IBM’s chairman, president, and CEO, said, “IBM and Confluent will help companies use new types of AI more quickly and easily. Our solution will give secure and reliable data flow between different systems, applications, and APIs. Today, data is stored in many places, such as public and private clouds, data centres, and different technology providers. By acquiring Confluent, IBM will offer a smart data platform designed especially for AI in businesses.”
Jay Kreps, CEO and Co-founder of Confluent, said, “Since we started Confluent, we have helped organizations make the most of their data and create new technology solutions in a complex IT world. We are proud to give our clients a real-time data streaming platform for the future, including support for new types of AI. We are excited to join IBM, work with their global team and resources, and continue our mission as part of IBM.”
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