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 ( MSFT )

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.