At the recent Confluent Current 2025 conference, the spotlight was firmly on the convergence of real-time data and artificial intelligence (AI), highlighting an evolving imperative within the AI development community: the integration of dynamic, streaming data into AI systems. Confluent unveiled several innovations designed to support this synergy. Central among these was the launch of Confluent Intelligence, a platform built on Confluent Cloud that streams and processes both historical and real-time data to supply contextually rich inputs directly into AI applications. This setup aims to help businesses ground their AI frameworks with continuously updated, trustworthy data.
In tandem with this, Confluent announced the general availability of integrations with Delta Lake and Databricks Unity Catalog within Confluent Tableflow, along with early access support for Microsoft OneLake. These advancements enable a fully managed, hybrid, and multicloud-capable solution that connects operational, analytical, and AI systems. Crucially, Confluent now supports direct data flow from Apache Kafka topics into Delta Lake or Apache Iceberg tables, ensuring automated quality controls and enterprise-grade security. Additionally, the introduction of a Real-Time Context Engine, compliant with the Model Context Protocol (MCP), promises to deliver precise, structured context to any AI agent or large language model (LLM)-powered application, accelerating AI deployment with trusted data streams.
Parallel to Confluent’s announcements, NVIDIA’s GTC 2025 conference revealed pioneering strides in bridging quantum computing and AI supercomputing. NVIDIA introduced NVQLink, an open system architecture designed to tightly integrate quantum processors with GPU-powered AI compute infrastructure. NVQLink addresses significant challenges in quantum computing, notably quantum error correction and real-time processing needs, by enabling high-speed, low-latency connectivity between quantum processing units (QPUs) and classical AI resources. Accessible through NVIDIA’s CUDA-Q software, this platform supports hybrid quantum-classical application development, representing a substantial leap towards practical, scalable quantum computing solutions.
Supporting this quantum-AI integration vision, partnerships with organizations like Keysight Technologies and Rigetti Computing underscore industry-wide momentum. Keysight is focused on delivering advanced control systems that merge quantum and AI infrastructures efficiently, while Rigetti contributes scalable quantum processors optimized for hybrid systems. Together, these collaborations are setting the stage for accelerated quantum supercomputing capabilities applicable to AI, ultra-precise simulations, and advanced modeling across sectors.
The broader real-time analytics arena also saw multiple significant developments. Companies like Hammerspace and Actian have released solutions aimed at making enterprise data more accessible and governed for AI applications, particularly those driven by agentic AI. Akamai launched its Inference Cloud to distribute AI inference closer to users at the network edge, reducing latency and providing scalable edge AI processing. Meanwhile, Altair enhanced its RapidMiner platform to integrate human insight with data automation and agentic AI collaboration, supporting more scalable and trusted AI environments.
Innovations in data quality and analytics were showcased by Anomalo’s Intelligent Data Analyst (AIDA), which uses natural language queries to provide instant insights from monitored datasets, and CelerData’s StarRocks 4.0, which unites data lake flexibility with high performance analytics. Commvault introduced Data Rooms, enabling secure access of backup data for AI platforms, while DeltaStream expanded access to its unified streaming data platform on Microsoft Azure.
Other notable announcements come from firms advancing AI infrastructure and developer tools. InfluxData’s InfluxDB 3.6 now supports Ask AI capabilities, enhancing time-series data analytics with AI-driven interaction. Informatica has bolstered its Intelligent Data Management Cloud with new AI-enabled automation tools. Leaseweb extended its AI-ready cloud infrastructure across North America with NVIDIA GPU integration, and OPAQUE introduced a platform accelerating the secure deployment of Confidential AI agents.
Moreover, companies such as Qlik, SUSE, and Teradata are ramping up efforts to embed AI and agentic solutions into their enterprise offerings, focusing on forecasting, secure AI integration, and scaling AI agents from pilots to production. Strategic collaborations include Amplitude’s agent-to-agent integrations and Elastic’s integration with Azure AI Foundry to provide observability and monitoring for AI workloads.
This flurry of activity across real-time analytics, AI, and quantum computing illustrates an accelerating trend where data-in-motion and hybrid computing architectures are foundational to next-generation AI solutions. Vendors and partners alike are striving to deliver platforms that not only integrate vast and diverse data streams in real time but also harness cutting-edge quantum and GPU technologies to unlock new AI capabilities.
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Source: Noah Wire Services