Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Cray, a global supercomputer leader, announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement under which HPE will acquire Cray for $35.00 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at approximately $1.3 billion, net of cash.
“Answers to some of society's most pressing challenges are buried in massive amounts of data,” said HPE CEO Antonio Neri. “Only by processing and analysing this data will we be able to unlock the answers to critical challenges across medicine, climate change, space and more.
“Cray is a global technology leader in supercomputing and shares our deep commitment to innovation. By combining our world-class teams and technology, we will have the opportunity to drive the next generation of high-performance computing and play an important part in advancing the way people live and work.
The explosion of data is driving strong HPC growth
The explosion of data from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics and evolving customer needs for data-intensive workloads are driving a significant expansion in HPC.
Over the next three years the HPC segment of the market and associated storage and services is expected to grow from approximately $28 billion in 2018 to approximately $35 billion in 2021, a compound annual growth rate of approximately 9 per cent. Exascale is a growing segment of overall HPC opportunities and more than $4 billion of Exascale opportunities are expected to be awarded over the next five years.
Addressing complex challenges and advancing critical academic research, including predicting future weather patterns, delivering breakthrough medical discoveries, and preventing cyber-attacks, requires significant computational capabilities, up to and through Exascale level architecture. Exascale capable systems enable solutions to these problems with much greater precision and insight.
“This is an amazing opportunity to bring together Cray's leading-edge technology and HPE's wide reach and deep product portfolio, providing customers of all sizes with integrated solutions and unique supercomputing technology to address the full spectrum of their data-intensive needs,” said Cray CEO Peter Ungaro.
“HPE and Cray share a commitment to customer-centric innovation and a vision to create the global leader for the future of high-performance computing and AI. On behalf of the Cray Board of Directors, we are pleased to have reached an agreement that we believe maximises value and are excited for the opportunities that this unique combination will create for both our employees and our customers.
Cray strengthens and expands HPE's high-performance computing portfolio
High-performance computing is a key component of HPE's vision and growth strategy and the company currently offers world-class HPC solutions, including HPE Apollo and SGI, to customers worldwide. This portfolio will be further strengthened by leveraging Cray's foundational technologies and adding complementary solutions.
The combined company will also reach a broader set of end markets, offering enterprise, academic and government customers a broad range of solutions and deep expertise to solve their most complex problems. Together, HPE and Cray will have enhanced opportunities for growth and the integrated platform, scale and resources to lead the Exascale era of high-performance computing.