Categories: ProjectsWorkspace

Nvidia Buys HPC Compiler Expert The Portland Group

US chip manufacturer Nvidia has announced the acquisition of High Performance Computing (HPC) software developer The Portland Group.

The Portland Group (PGI) produces a set of commercially available Fortran, C and C++ compilers for the supercomputing industry. The deal gives Nvidia an advantage in the HPC market, where it offers innovative GPU-accelerated architecture to compete with the traditional CPU-powered designs.

There are currently no details on the price of the acquisition.

Nvidia expands its toolkit

Since being founded in 1989, PGI has worked with Intel, IBM, Linux, ARM and obviously, Nvidia, collaborating on the CUDA Fortran.

The company is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon. It develops compilers, debuggers, performance profilers and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) specifically for the HPC applications.

Originally a privately held company, PGI was acquired by STMicroelectronics in December 2000.  It continued producing HPC compilers and tools under new management. However, it seems that Nvidia wasn’t happy with being just a client, and decided to buy the company outright.

Under the terms of the deal, PGI will continue developing OpenACC, CUDA Fortran and CUDA x86 projects. The acquisition doesn’t mean the company will stop working with its current customers either, even though some of them might directly compete with Nvidia.

“Bringing our teams together further cements our strong, established technical partnership in creating developer tools for the accelerated computing revolution. It also strengthens the OpenACC initiative to create an easy on-ramp to parallel computing by joining the world’s top independent provider of OpenACC compilers with the world’s best GPU designers,” said Ian Buck, general manager of GPU Computing Software at Nvidia.

Lat month, researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine revealed they were able to use Blue Waters supercomputer, which features 3,000 Tesla K20X GPUs, to create a simulation of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), down to the atom level.

What do you know about supercomputers? Take our quiz!

Max Smolaks

Max 'Beast from the East' Smolaks covers open source, public sector, startups and technology of the future at TechWeekEurope. If you find him looking lost on the streets of London, feed him coffee and sugar.

Recent Posts

X’s Community Notes Fails To Stem US Election Misinformation – Report

Hate speech non-profit that defeated Elon Musk's lawsuit, warns X's Community Notes is failing to…

1 day ago

Google Fined More Than World’s GDP By Russia

Good luck. Russia demands Google pay a fine worth more than the world's total GDP,…

1 day ago

Spotify, Paramount Sign Up To Use Google Cloud ARM Chips

Google Cloud signs up Spotify, Paramount Global as early customers of its first ARM-based cloud…

2 days ago

Meta Warns Of Accelerating AI Infrastructure Costs

Facebook parent Meta warns of 'significant acceleration' in expenditures on AI infrastructure as revenue, profits…

2 days ago

AI Helps Boost Microsoft Cloud Revenues By 33 Percent

Microsoft says Azure cloud revenues up 33 percent for September quarter as capital expenditures surge…

2 days ago