Nvidia scoops up Bright Computing in HPC push

Nvidia logo on a dark background
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Nvidia has acquired Bright Computing as it looks to boost its high-performance computing systems (HPC) operations across the board

Although perhaps best known for its graphics cards, Nvidia operates across a wide range of other fields, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which it believes can be helped by Bright Computing's offerings. 

The two companies have been working closely for more than a decade, Nvidia explained in a blog post announcing the news, integrating Bright’s software with its GPUs, networking, CUDA, and - DGX systems. It is exactly the latter - an Nvidia line of servers and workstations specializing in the use of GPGPU to accelerate deep learning applications - where the companies believe the acquisition will most likely show its full potential.

Bright future

Nvidia says the deal gives it an opportunity to make HPC data centers easier to buy, build and operate. Bright’s software, the company claims, can run at the edge, in the data center, and across multiple public or hybrid clouds. It automates administration for clusters, and supports both Arm and x86 CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, and Kubernetes containers.

Nvidia further explains that while Bright’s software and expertise will enhance its growing Nvidia DGX and data center businesses, Nvidia’s partners will also “take Bright’s software to more markets”. 

Bright Computing was founded in 2009, and is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its software is allegedly used by more than 700 organizations worldwide, including companies in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and other verticals. Some of its customers include household names such as Boeing, NASA, Johns Hopkins University, or Siemens. 

“We welcome Bright’s employees into NVIDIA. Together, we’ll continue to support Bright’s customers and invest in its product roadmap to grow the business,” the company concluded.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The world is experiencing an “industrial HPC era”, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said. The company believes clusters are at the heart of HPC’s scale-out style of computing, and that companies left and right are adopting HPC systems to build physically accurate 3D simulations and digital twins for work.

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.