IBM announces acquisition of AI platform firm DataStax

IBM has announced its intention to acquire DataStax, a company known for its AI platform, subject to transaction closure and regulatory approvals.

The acquisition aims to integrate DataStax's NoSQL database technology with IBM's WatsonX enterprise AI suite to enhance enterprise capabilities in generative AI solutions. With the increasing prevalence of unstructured enterprise data, which IDC projects to reach 93% by 2024, this merger seeks to fortify the management and utilisation of such data within AI applications.

DataStax is recognised for its development of AstraDB and DataStax Enterprise, databases powered by Apache Cassandra, and Langflow, an open-source tool for low-code AI application development. These technologies facilitate streamlined development of AI solutions, a capability that IBM seeks to enhance through this acquisition.

Chet Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of DataStax, stated, "As enterprises adopt AI, they often struggle to leverage and deliver the knowledge locked in their enterprise data estate to power their AI agents and large language models. As they seek to deliver on the promise of AI in production, bringing these together with scalable, secure, and accurate production AI becomes essential."

"We have long said that there is no AI without data, and this vision will now be propelled as DataStax joins IBM. With our technologies, and IBM's WatsonX.data, their hybrid, open data lakehouse, we will be able to bring vector and AI search to the entire data estate and make IBM's capabilities available to every developer. We respect the leadership and stewardship that IBM has demonstrated with OSS and we're excited to become part of a company that understands the power of openness."

Addressing current customer concerns, Kapoor emphasised, "DataStax exemplifies serving our customers with inspired leadership. This mission will not change, and our commitment to support the many customers who use us as a key foundation of their most important infrastructure and mission-critical applications will be unwavering."

The planned acquisition is set to combine DataStax's expertise in handling unstructured and semi-structured data with IBM's AI strengths, creating a robust platform for AI-driven solutions. Both companies hold a significant commitment to open-source software—a stance bolstered further by this acquisition, which aims to advance these technologies for enterprise solutions.

DataStax and IBM have previously collaborated since 2020, assisting major corporations such as T-Mobile, Audi, The Home Depot, and Intuit. DataStax has recently introduced products like HCD and Mission Control to facilitate cloud-native deployments on IBM OpenShift.

The acquisition promises to influence the forthcoming developments in enterprise data management and AI solutions, with the ambition to provide clients with scalable and high-performance data architectures through open-source technologies.