April 29 (Reuters) - Cognizant Technology has agreed to buy Astreya, an IT services and technology provider focused on AI infrastructure and data center services, in a deal valued at around $600 million, the company told Reuters.

The deal is expected to strengthen Cognizant's AI infrastructure capabilities, as companies ramp up spending on the technology that is reshaping industries.

The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026 pending regulatory approvals, is likely to be announced on Wednesday.

Cognizant has benefited from enterprise clients accelerating AI integration and automation as they migrate workloads to the cloud. The company has expanded partnerships with Microsoft and AI startup Anthropic to stay ahead of rivals in a highly competitive industry.

"By acquiring Astreya and its proprietary AI tooling and production-grade infrastructure platform, which is complementary to Cognizant's AI builder stack, we will be even better-positioned to help clients architect their platform-led AI systems and operationalise them at scale," Chief Executive Ravi Kumar S said.

The Astreya deal builds on a recent run of acquisitions aimed at strengthening Cognizant's AI business. The company bought tech consulting firm 3Cloud in January to expand its Microsoft Azure capabilities and acquired digital engineering firm Belcan in 2024 for nearly $1.3 billion.

Founded in 2001, Astreya has spent nearly a decade managing data center infrastructure, AI lab environments and enterprise networks for six of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech firms.

Cognizant, valued at $26 billion, has lost more than a third of its market value this year, weighed down by a weak demand outlook for IT services and AI-driven deflation fears.