# Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink: Engine for Mission-Critical, Real-Time Operational Systems and dbt/SQL-Native Home for Data Science and AI

DevFeed: [Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink: Engine for Mission-Critical, Real-Time Operational Systems and dbt/SQL-Native Home for Data Science and AI](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/confluent-cloud-for-apache-flink-engine-for-mission-critical-real-time-operational-systems-and-dbt-sql-native-home-for-data-science-and-ai-11550.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.confluent.io/blog/flink-mission-critical-operations-data-engg/>)

Author: Yashwanth Dasari

Published: 2026-08-18T02:20:00Z

Content type: release

Language: en

Sources: [Confluent: Data in motion](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/confluent-data-in-motion.md>)

Topics: [Confluent Cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/confluent-cloud.md>), [apache-flink](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/apache-flink.md>), [stream-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/stream-processing.md>), [Kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kafka.md>), [AI, ML & Data Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-ml-data-engineering.md>), [Cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cloud.md>), [SDKs](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/sdks.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [announcement](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/announcement.md>), [apache-flink](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/apache-flink.md>), [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [batch](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/batch.md>), [confluent-cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/confluent-cloud.md>), [data-science](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-science.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kafka.md>), [real-time](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/real-time.md>)

## AI overview

Confluent announces an evolution of Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink that unifies mission-critical real-time operations with analytics and AI workflows. The release adds a serverless, co-designed Kafka and Flink platform, including the generally available Flink Table API in Java for code-first development.

## Source excerpt

Flink now acts as a robust engine for developers through Table API, UDFs, and PTFs while offering a SQL-native, dbt-integrated platform for data science and AI teams.