Planned acquisition furthers IBM's commitment to open-source
innovation; helps clients access untapped, unstructured enterprise
data to maximize the impact of generative AI
ARMONK,
N.Y., Feb. 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM
(NYSE: IBM) today is announcing its intent to acquire DataStax, an
AI and data solution provider. DataStax's technology will enhance
IBM's watsonx portfolio of products accelerating the use of
generative AI, helping companies unlock value from vast amounts of
unstructured data.
The acquisition also builds on IBM's commitment to open-source
AI. DataStax is the creator of AstraDB and DataStax Enterprise,
NoSQL and vector database capabilities powered by Apache
Cassandra®; and Langflow, the open-source tool and community for
low-code AI application development.
IBM will continue to support, engage, and innovate with the
open-source Apache Cassandra®, Langflow, Apache Pulsar™, and
OpenSearch communities in which DataStax participates. IBM's
long-standing commitment to open-source AI includes the open-source
IBM Granite foundation models and Instruct Lab, a revolutionary
approach to advancing true open-source innovation around LLMs.
Harnessing unstructured data for the enterprise
Businesses are struggling to harness valuable, unstructured data
from across their business, which is critical for powering
generative AI. Without tools to properly ingest and manage this
untapped data, costly generative AI projects will fail to deliver
their full potential. Even 70% of companies with high-performing
generative AI initiatives experience data-related difficulties,
according to McKinsey, and it is estimated that just one percent of
enterprise data is represented in today's AI models.
IBM is a leader in helping clients scale generative AI and
transform their business using enterprise data. The acquisition of
DataStax enhances these efforts. Their vector database excels at
harnessing unstructured enterprise data and accelerating its time
to value, and Langflow provides a graphical, low-code design
environment and component orchestration for generative AI apps that
facilitates collaboration across diverse skillsets.
- AstraDB and DataStax Enterprise provide NoSQL and
vector database capabilities powered by Apache Cassandra®, enabling
production-ready generative AI applications for the enterprise.
AstraDB will enhance the existing vector capabilities of IBM
watsonx.data, IBM's hybrid, open data lakehouse for AI and
analytics. Thousands of organizations use Apache Cassandra®,
including some of the biggest names in software, retail, finance,
and ecommerce. Apache Cassandra® provides scalability,
availability, fault tolerance, high performance, and
multi-data-center and hybrid cloud support. And increasingly,
Apache Cassandra® users are leveraging the database for AI
workloads. In this context, DataStax brings together a mature
datastore with vector and graphRAG capabilities – a critical
combination for harnessing unstructured data for generative AI
- Langflow is a low-code, open-source app builder for RAG
and multi-agent AI applications. It is Python-based and model-,
API-, and database-agnostic. Langflow adds additional flexible
middleware capabilities to IBM watsonx.ai, the integrated,
end-to-end AI development studio for building generative AI
applications
"Businesses cannot realize the full potential of generative AI
without the right infrastructure – open-source tools and
technologies that empower developers, harness unstructured data,
and provide a strong foundation for AI applications," says
Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice
President, IBM Software. "DataStax possesses deep competency in
this area and shares IBM's relentless commitment to simplifying and
scaling generative AI for the enterprise."
"Enterprises want to deliver production AI fast, but are still
struggling to unlock the value in their data to power AI
applications and agents," says Chet
Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of DataStax. "DataStax's products
solve this problem, accelerating AI's promise with the scalability,
security, and accuracy developers and enterprises need. We've long
said that there is no AI without data, and are excited to execute
this vision with IBM."
DataStax's hundreds of customers include FedEx, Capital One, The
Home Depot and Verizon. DataStax was founded in 2010 and is
headquartered in Santa Clara, CA.
Financial details of the transaction were not
disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in the
second quarter of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and
regulatory approvals.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid
cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more
than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data,
streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive
edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate
entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial
services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid
cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital
transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's
breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing,
industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and
flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's
long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility,
inclusivity, and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more
information.
Media contact:
Kevin
Zawacki
Communications, IBM Software
kevin.zawacki@ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM
