Last month, Agnès Boudot, SVP, head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, told us — without sharing details — that the company’s global strategy includes expansion into the U.S. market. At least part of that strategy was revealed today with the news that Atos has acquired long-time high-performance computing cloud platform provider Nimbix.
Established in 2010 and headquartered outside of Dallas, Nimbix offers cloud and on premises HPC, giving engineers and scientists access to infrastructure and software for simulations, AI and machine/deep learning applications. The company said it has executed thousands of cloud HPC projects in 68 countries.
“Two-thirds of HPC users are already incorporating cloud computing as part of their overall strategy, and that number continues to grow,” said Addison Snell, CEO at HPC industry analyst firm Intersect360 Research. “We’ve seen double-digit growth in cloud for five years, and that trend will continue for the next five. But it’s important to realize that these are hybrid strategies, in which cloud resources are complementing on-premises computing, not replacing it. The Atos acquisition of Nimbix addresses this trend precisely, wrapping hybrid cloud know-how with domain-specific HPC expertise. The reach and experience of Nimbix will give Atos reach to more HPC users and use cases.”
Atos said its combined capabilities with Nimbix offer a solution for workload orchestration for both on-prem and cloud customers. The joint solution enables higher levels of self service and automation, enhancing Atos’ capabilities with multi-cloud bursting and hybrid capability, enabling Atos to expand its offering under the Atos brand as part of its OneCloud initiative.
“The unique intellectual property provided by Nimbix will accelerate Atos’ HPCaaS developments and go-to-market plans with Cloud Services Providers, as well as increasing and accelerating Atos’ HPC footprint in North America,” Atos said. “It will also help strengthen Atos’s HPC propositions in key markets, such as manufacturing, financial services & Insurance, healthcare & life sciences, in addition to public sector & defense, by simplifying the access to HPC services without heavy up-front CAPEX.”
“HPC Cloud is growing year-on-year and 2021 represents a tipping point where an increasingly large portion of the global HPC market is adopting cloud as a core part of its HPC strategy,” said Pierre Barnabé, senior executive vice president, global head of Big Data & Security at Atos. “With this acquisition, we will be able to complement our existing HPC offering and expertise with a comprehensive solution, providing customers with the most advanced hybrid cloud capabilities to better manage the use, performance and delivery of services for both cloud-native and on-prem deployments. Nimbix’s technology is ahead of the market and, combined with its strong experience and highly skilled experts, will strengthen the Atos teams and enable us to expand our market offering and reach.”
“Having pioneered advanced HPC capabilities in cloud computing over the last many years, we are very excited to join forces with Atos, a global leader in HPC infrastructure and digital transformation. We are confident that our combined capabilities bring new solutions and offer significant value to our respective clients. We look forward to enabling our mutual customers to accelerate their rate of innovation with our combined HPC offerings.” said Steve Hebert, Nimbix CEO and co-founder.
