Nvidia has completed its acquisition of Run:ai, a software company that makes it easier for customers to orchestrate GPU clouds for AI, and said that it would open-source the software.
The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but was pegged by reports at $700 million when Nvidia first reported its intent to close the deal in April. Run:ai posted the deal news on its website today and the company said Nvidia additionally plans to open source its software. The company’s software remotely schedules Nvidia GPU resources for AI in the cloud.
Neither company explained why Run:ai will open source its platform, but it’s probably not hard to figure out. Since Nvidia has grown to be the No. 1 maker of AI chips, its stock price has soared to $3.56 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world. That’s great for Nvidia, but it makes it hard for it to acquire companies because of antitrust oversight.
A spokesperson for Nvidia said only in a statement, “We’re delighted to welcome the Run:ai team to Nvidia.”
When Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, it appeased antitrust regulators by licensing Activision’s Call of Duty game to other platforms for a decade to address worries that the company would become too powerful in gaming. The same might be happening here.
Run:ai founders Omri Geller and Ronen Dar said in a press release that open sourcing its software will help the community build better AI, faster.
“While Run:ai currently supports only Nvidia GPUs, open sourcing the software will enable it to extend its availability to the entire AI ecosystem,” Geller and Dar said.
They said they will continue to help our customers to get the most out of their AI Infrastructure and offer the ecosystem maximum flexibility, efficiency and utilization for GPU systems, wherever they are: On-Prem, in the cloud through native solutions, or on Nvidia DGX Cloud, co-engineered with leading CSPs.
The founders also said, “True to our open-platform philosophy, as part of Nvidia, we will keep empowering AI teams with the freedom to choose the tools, platforms, and frameworks that best suit their needs. We will continue to strengthen our partnerships and work alongside the ecosystem todeliver a wide variety of AI solutions and platform choices.”
The Israel-based company said its goal when it was founded in 2018 was to be a driving force in the AIrevolution and empower organizations to unlock the full potential of their AI infrastructure.
“Over the years, our world-class team has achieved milestones that we could only dream of back then. Together, we’ve built innovative technology, an amazing product, and an incredible go-to-market engine,” the founders said.
Run:ai helps customers to orchestrate their AI Infrastructure, increase efficiency and utilization, and boost the productivity of their AI teams.
“We are thrilled to build on this momentum, now as part of Nvidia. AI and accelerated computing are transforming the world at an unprecedented pace, and we believe this is just the beginning,” the Run:ai founders said. “GPUs and AI infrastructure will remain at the forefront of driving these transformative innovations and joining Nvidia provides us an extraordinary opportunity to carry forward a joint mission of helping humanity solve the world’s greatest challenges.”
Nvidia has been a longtime maker of graphics chips, and those chips have become a lot more useful in recent years in running AI software. Now the company is also emphasizing software and this acquisition is related to giving customers maximum choice, efficiency and flexibility for GPU orchestration software. Nvidia and Run:ai have been working together since 2020 and they have joint customers.
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