2025 Data Infra Recap: What Mattered, What’s Next

We are excited to invite you to our now-traditional annual Data Infrastructure Recap. This year has delivered some truly game-changing moments in the data infra world, and this webinar will break down the most important ones you need to know. Our primary focus will be on three major areas—Kafka, Iceberg, and AI—although our panelists will have the freedom to go beyond the script.

In this session, we will walk through the key trends, shifts, and innovations that defined data infrastructure over the past year. We will explore how these technologies have evolved, the challenges that practitioners are encountering, and the opportunities emerging as data systems

We will cover:

• Major trends in data infrastructure for 2025, with a focus on:
  - Kafka: reflections on the Confluent acquisition, key recent developments (including diskless), and where the ecosystem is heading
  - Iceberg: key updates from v3, what to expect in v4, and ongoing adoption challenges
  - AI: how AI is reshaping data infrastructure, the rising importance of real-time data, and concepts like Redpanda’s “agentic data plane”
• Key challenges and open questions in the data infrastructure ecosystem
• Predictions and emerging trends to watch in 2026

Speakers:

• Yingjun Wu - Founder and CEO at RisingWave Labs
• Filip Yonov - Head of Cloud Streaming Data at Aiven
• Tyler Akidau - CTO at Redpanda
• Stanislav Kozlovski - The Kafka Guy