# Lightning Tables for Topics in Confluent Cloud A Lightning Table makes the data in an Apache Kafka® topic available for low-latency SQL queries. When you enable a Lightning Table for a topic, Confluent Cloud continuously ingests new data so that the Lightning Table reflects the latest state. You query it in the Confluent Cloud Console, through an HTTP API, with a Model Context Protocol (MCP) client, with the Confluent CLI, or with a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) client, without consuming from the topic directly. To enable a Lightning Table for a topic, you need the following: - A Basic, Standard, Enterprise, or Dedicated cluster on AWS in a [supported region](../get-started/regions.md#providers-regions). - A registered schema (Avro, Protobuf, or JSON Schema) on the topic. - At minimum, the `CloudClusterAdmin` role. For complete instructions on enabling, disabling, and managing Lightning Tables, see the [Lightning Tables documentation](../lightning-tables/overview.md#lightning-tables-overview). #### NOTE This website includes content developed at the [Apache Software Foundation](https://www.apache.org/) under the terms of the [Apache License v2](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html).