Unglamorous world of 'data infrastructure' driving hot tech M&A market in AI race

FILE PHOTO: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a speech, as the letters AI for artificial intelligence appear on screen, at the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 27, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

(Reuters) -Weighed down by tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, dealmaking has slowed to a crawl across most industries except one: the unglamorous world of data infrastructure.

The companies that process the data used to build advanced AI models have become highly sought after targets for legacy tech companies like Meta, Salesforce, and ServiceNow in the scramble to stay competitive against the likes of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.