Nvidia acquires HPC cluster management firm Bright Computing


Sabina Weston

11 Jan, 2022

Nvidia has announced the acquisition of high-performance computing (HPC) systems management provider Bright Computing for an undisclosed sum.

The deal will see Nvidia open new markets for Bright Computing, which in turn will help expand Nvidia’s accelerated computing portfolio with its Bright Cluster Manager product.

The two companies had been collaborators for more than a decade, with Nvidia integrating Bright’s Cluster Manager with its CUDA parallel computing platform and programming model, and most recently its deep learning-focused DGX systems.

Commenting on the acquisition, vice president and general manager of DGX Systems at Nvidia, Charlie Boyle, said that Bright Computing’s software and expertise will enhance the company’s growing DGX and data centre businesses,

“Now we see an opportunity to combine our system software capabilities to make HPC data centres easier to buy, build and operate, creating a much larger future for HPC,” he added.

Bright Computing CEO Bill Wagner said that “Nvidia is changing the world as we know it”, adding that the company “couldn’t be more excited for our team and software to play a part in that”.

Founded in 2009 and based in Amsterdam, Bright Computing services are used by more than 700 organisations worldwide, including Microsoft,, Samsung, Boeing, NASA, and Tesla.

The acquisition will see Bright’s workforce transferred to Nvidia. The company wasn’t immediately available for comment regarding the future of Bright’s employees or its Amsterdam office and didn’t disclose the financial details of the deal. Nvidia’s current Netherlands headquarters are based in Delft.

The news comes weeks after the UK government ordered a “phase two” investigation into Nvidia’s $40 billion (£30 billion) acquisition of Cambridge-based ARM. Over a period of 24 weeks, the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) will consider evidence whether the acquisition of the Cambridge-based semiconductor company by the US chip giant is a threat to competition and national security.

The first phase of the CMA’s investigation, which concluded in August and covered competition and jurisdictional issues, determined that the deal could lessen competition across four markets: data centres, Internet of Things, automotive, and gaming.