Microsoft has acquired cloud computing orchestration company Cycle Computing to make it easier for customers to use high-performance computing (HPC) and other computing capabilities in the cloud.
The purchase was announced in a blog post by Jason Zander, corporate VP, Microsoft Azure.
“From finding a cure for cancer to making vehicles safer to fulfilling the promises of artificial intelligence, today’s complex problems require the ability to harness massive amounts of computing power,” wrote Zander.
However, for too long, “big computing” has been accessible only to the most well-funded organizations, he added, noting that Microsoft believes that access to big computing capabilities in the cloud has the power to transform many businesses and will be at the forefront of breakthroughs for years to come.
“The cloud is quickly changing the world of big compute, giving customers the on-demand power and infrastructure necessary to run massive workloads at scale without the overhead. Your compute power is no longer measured or limited by the square footage of your data center,” wrote Zander.
Azure has a “massive global footprint” with powerful infrastructure, InfiniBand support for fast networking and state-of-the-art GPU capabilities, said Zander, explaining that the combination of this infrastructure in a public cloud with Cycle Computing’s technology and experience will help customers accelerate their movement to the cloud.
“We’ve already seen explosive growth on Azure in the areas of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and deep learning. As customers continue to look for faster, more efficient ways to run their workloads, Cycle Computing’s depth and expertise around massively scalable applications make them a great fit to join our Microsoft team,” Zander noted.
For more information, read the full blog post by Zander here.
A blog post by Jason Stowe, founder and CEO of Cycle Computing, is also available here.