IBM to Acquire DataStax to Bolster watsonx's GenAI Offerings

IBM has announced its intensions 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.

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.

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.

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.  

Harnessing unstructured data for the enterprise

"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," IBM said in a press release.

Thousands of organisations use Apache Cassandra® such as FedEx, Capital One, The Home Depot and Verizon. Apache Cassandra® provides scalability, availability, fault tolerance, high performance, and multi-data-center and hybrid cloud support.

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.

"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. DataStax possesses deep competency in this area and shares IBM's relentless commitment to simplifying and scaling generative AI for the enterprise,"   said Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice President, IBM Software. 

"Enterprises want to deliver production AI fast, but are still struggling to unlock the value in their data to power AI applications and agents. 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," said Chet Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of DataStax.