HPE buys SGI for HPC TLC

HPE has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SGI for $275 million in a move which expands its footprint in the high-performance computing market.

High-performance computing and data analytics are two segments in which the company has targeted for growth in recent months, with SGI offering HPE the opportunity to expand in the scientific, technical, business and government communities. SGI currently employs around 1100 people worldwide, though how the team will be integrated into the wider HPE business has not been stated yet.

“At HPE, we are focused on empowering data-driven organizations,” said Antonio Neri, GM of the Enterprise Group at HPE. “SGI’s innovative technologies and services, including its best-in-class big data analytics and high-performance computing solutions, complement HPE’s proven data centre solutions designed to create business insight and accelerate time to value for customers.”

Over the last couple of months the telecommunications and technology industry has experienced an explosion in data, which is not only expected to continue, but accelerate over the next couple of years. This growth has driven interest in the high-performance computing market to make sense and use of this tidal wave of data. Markets and markets research estimate the high-performance computing market will be worth in the region of $36 billion by 2020. Data analytics is set also set to increase with some estimates stating a faster rate of growth.

Following its split from HP, HPE has been reported healthy growth and make a number of positive moves within the industry. Aside from the SGI acquisition, the team announced CSC would be merging with the enterprise services segment of HPE which will be spun out to create a $26 billion organization.

HP on the other hand has been relatively flat, and has beefed up its venture capitalist business to identify new revenue streams. Although it has not been directly addressed to date, the new scope for the HP VC business unit includes hyper-mobility, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and smart machines, which has the potential to put the two in competition.

While HPE has been making progress since the split it has been relatively quiet over the last couple of months. The SGI acquisition has the potential for HPE to make waves within the high-performance computing market, a segment which could hold the key for future innovation in the burgeoning data analytics market.