IBM Nears Roughly $11 Billion Deal for Confluent
Deal for data-infrastructure company could come as soon as Monday
International Business Machines is in advanced talks to acquire data-infrastructure company Confluent CFLT -0.90%decrease; red down pointing triangle for around $11 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The details
A deal could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said, cautioning that the talks could still fall apart.
Confluent had a market value of around $8 billion as of Friday, while IBM’s was around $290 billion.
Confluent provides technology that helps manage streams of real-time data used in big artificial-intelligence models. An AI boom has boosted the need for its capabilities from companies in sectors including retail, technology and financial services.
The context
An acquisition of Confluent would be the biggest deal for IBM in recent memory as it repositions its business around AI.
Last year, it agreed to buy cloud-software provider HashiCorp for $6.4 billion, in a deal that pushed it further into fast-growing cloud and AI offerings.
In October, IBM posted higher revenue in the third quarter, boosted by higher-than-expected growth in its consulting business. IBM in November said it would lay off thousands of employees before the end of the year, joining other technology companies that are repositioning themselves in the age of artificial intelligence.
IBM has been competing with Google, Microsoft and a number of startups to build computers that exceed the abilities of the best conventional ones. It is working on larger clusters of quantum chips that it expects will enable large-scale computing in the next five years.
Chief Executive Arvind Krishna recently said IBM has used AI—specifically AI agents—to replace the work of a couple of hundred human-resources workers. That has enabled it to hire more programmers and salespeople.
Technology has been one of the busiest sectors for dealmaking this year. Google parent Alphabet struck a $32 billion deal for cybersecurity startup Wiz. Palo Alto Networks agreed to a $25 billion deal for CyberArk. And Salesforce struck an $8 billion deal for data-management software firm Informatica.