IBM in talks to acquire Confluent for $11bn

Group 1: Acquisition of Confluent - IBM is in advanced discussions to acquire Confluent for approximately $11 billion, as reported by the Wall Street Journal [1] - Confluent operates a cloud-native platform that processes large streams of real-time data, enabling businesses to respond intelligently to operational events [2] - Confluent's market capitalization is around $8.09 billion, while IBM's valuation is approximately $287.84 billion [3] Group 2: Financial Performance - Confluent reported subscription revenue of $286 million for Q3 and anticipates revenue of $295.5 million to $296.5 million for Q4 [2] - The interest in acquiring Confluent is driven by increased demand for data infrastructure, particularly due to the corporate push towards generative AI [4] Group 3: Regulatory Developments - IBM has been designated as a critical ICT provider under the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) [5] - This designation requires IBM to comply with operational resilience standards and regulatory obligations set by European Supervisory Authorities [7] - IBM will collaborate with these authorities to meet the operational and technical resilience requirements essential for Europe's financial system [6]