HPE bolsters HPC business with Determined AI acquisition


Jane McCallion

22 Jun, 2021

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has acquired open source artificial intelligence (AI) startup Determined AI.

The four-year-old company, which only brought its product to market in 2020, specialises in machine learning (ML), with the aim of training artificial intelligence (AI) models quickly and at any scale. While it hasn’t been around long, the startup has managed to secure customers in a number of sectors, including defence contracting, manufacturing, autonomous vehicles and biopharmaceuticals.

Determined AI will be brought into HPE’s high-performance computing (HPC) and mission-critical solutions (MCS) business unit, and the deal will see the startup’s technology combined HPE’s AI and HPC offerings. 

    Justin Hotard, SVP and GM of HPC  and MCS said: “Determined AI’s unique open source platform allows ML engineers to build models faster and deliver business value sooner without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. I am pleased to welcome the world-class Determined AI team, who share our vision to make AI more accessible for our customers and users, into the HPE family.”

    Determined AI’s founders Neir Conway, Evan Sparks and Ameet Talwalker, described the acquisition as “a massive accelerant for our mission to empower users to efficiently build cutting-edge AI applications”.

    The three added that the platform will remain open source, saying “HPE shares our vision that driving an open standard for AI software infrastructure is the fastest way for the industry to realise the potential of AI.

    “Consequently, HPE is committed to investing in and rapidly growing the Determined Training Platform as an open source project. Our customers and open source community members will continue to receive the same high level of service and support that they always have, from a team of experts who are intimately familiar with the challenges they’re facing.”