Reported by the Wall Street Journal
Deal could be finalized as early as the 8th, but may still fall through
U.S. technology company IBM is set to acquire artificial intelligence (AI) data infrastructure firm Confluent for approximately $11 billion (about 16 trillion won).
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on December 7 (local time), IBM has entered final negotiations to purchase Confluent for $11 billion. Sources familiar with the matter said the deal could be announced as early as the 8th, although there is still a possibility that negotiations could fall through.
As of December 5, Confluent had a market capitalization of about $8 billion, while IBM's market capitalization stands at around $290 billion. Confluent is a U.S. technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California, co-founded in 2014 by Jay Kreps, Jun Rao, and Neha Narkhede. The company provides real-time data stream management technology used in the development of large-scale AI models.
The acquisition of Confluent is expected to be IBM's largest deal in recent years as the company restructures its business around AI. Last year, IBM agreed to acquire cloud software company HashiCorp for $6.4 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna recently revealed that IBM has replaced the work of hundreds of human resources personnel with AI agents. He explained that this has enabled the company to hire more programmers and sales staff.
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