Dealmaking, after a few challenging years, is showing signs of heating up. What’s leading the way? artificial intelligence, of course.
On Monday, for example, CoreWeave (CRWV) made the second move of 2025’s AI-linked M&A run on Monday with the announcement of a $9 billion acquisition of data center infrastructure provider Core Scientific (CORZ).
Though the market largely lambasted the deal (CoreWeave and Core Scientific were down more than 3% and 17%, respectively, on Monday following the announcement), the acquisition is the latest in a line of big-ticket AI M&A announcements this year.
To be sure, dealmaking environment growth has been tepid through the first half of the year. But there are signs of life. The first half of 2025 has yielded approximately $750 billion in US M&A deals. That compares with 2024’s first-half volume of approximately $720 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Of the $750 billion in deals so far, AI-linked M&A deals announced this year have accounted for more than $65 billion, or a bit less than 10%. Globally, so far this year, there have been more than 240 deals involving AI startups compared to 2024’s total count of 454, according to Mergermarket data reported by trade publication PYMNTS.
The hope is that the AI feeding frenzy will drive further M&A growth in the second half of the year.
Part of what’s driving AI deals right now is the chance for companies with room on their balance sheets to establish themselves as leaders in a burgeoning industry, said Matthew Warner, an M&A lawyer at Clifford Chance. “This unique opportunity to become a new standard bearer helps prop up valuations and drives M&A deal activity because it’s an opportunity that will exist only for this moment in time,” Warner told Yahoo Finance.
Other deals
In May, Salesforce (CRM) announced an $8 billion all-cash acquisition of AI-driven cloud data management provider Informatica (INFA), building out the CRM giant’s AI infrastructure.
And in July, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) completed its $14 billion all-cash acquisition of AI-native network technology specialist Juniper Networks (JNPR).
Perhaps the marquee deal in the tech-AI space so far in 2025 has been Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) March announcement of its $32 billion all-cash acquisition of cloud security specialist Wiz, which Alphabet will use to enhance its cloud offering.
AI-driven deals in the power sector have also made a mark, driven by the power demands of the industry. Most notably: Constellation Energy’s (CEG) $16.4 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of private natural gas provider Calpine Corp., positioning Constellation as the nation’s largest independent power provider, per Reuters.
These deals are coming in alongside significant investments across the space by technology’s largest players. Four of the “Magnificent Seven companies” alone — Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet — are expected to spend a combined $325 billion in capital expenditures and investments this year.
“I expect that those companies that are seen as further behind in AI will make headline-grabbing deals as we’ve seen in the first half of the year, and those that are meaningfully ahead to make bolt-on acquisitions and smaller acquisitions to consolidate,” Warner said.
Data annotation specialist Scale AI confirmed in June that Meta had, as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s superintelligence drive, taken a 49% stake in the company worth $14.3 billion, and cloud giant Oracle (ORCL) announced in June that it had minted a cloud deal worth $30 billion in annual revenue with an undisclosed customer.
Earlier in May, CoreWeave spent approximately $1.7 billion to buy the AI application developer startup Weights & Biases, according to The Information.
In a June report compiled by more than 100 UBS analysts, the bank wrote that the AI-attributed revenue being generated by AI startups is far greater than that of already-large public companies. That may push large companies to acquire AI capability in a similar manner to Salesforce’s purchase of Informatica or to Meta’s stake in Scale AI and recruitment of its CEO Alexandr Wang.
“Unquestionably, we’ll continue to see both large and small acquisitions in the AI market like we’ve seen in the first half of the year,” Warner told Yahoo Finance. “Until we start seeing how the world takes shape with AI as a part of daily life, that opportunity will remain, and I think activity will continue.”
Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance.
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