Monday, February 4th 2008
NVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA Technologies
NVIDIA, the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.
"The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are-creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForcE-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."
"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.
Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT GPU, with its 112 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.
"The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics," continued Mr. Huang. "NVIDIA's CUDA technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing."
AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.
The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.
More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA's quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company's prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.
Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company's conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.
About AGEIA
AGEIA Technologies, Inc., is the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK. AGEIA is also credited with developing the world's first dedicated hardware physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX processor. The company, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.
Source:
NVIDIA
"The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are-creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForcE-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."
"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.
Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT GPU, with its 112 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.
"The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics," continued Mr. Huang. "NVIDIA's CUDA technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing."
AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.
The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.
More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA's quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company's prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.
Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company's conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.
About AGEIA
AGEIA Technologies, Inc., is the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK. AGEIA is also credited with developing the world's first dedicated hardware physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX processor. The company, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.
38 Comments on NVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA Technologies
Haven't they (nVidia) said that they were going to build theirs gpu's to run physics anyways? Which would have made physics cards unnecessary.
I guess if you can't beat them, buy them. :laugh:
I'd like to see a physics card integrated on the next NVIDIA chipset so you don't have to give up any slots for it.
When nVidia released the GeForce 256 back in 1999, they named it the "world's first Graphic Processing Unit" (GPU)Source
Ati's PR department on the other hand came up with the term VPU (Video Processing Unit) some time afterwards with their Radeon cards.
So, as you can see, nVidia indeed invented the acronym GPU. ;)
Back to topic, it's been rumored from a long time that Ageia has been working on a new PPU, so this means nVidia will kill this new PPU and somehow implement Ageia's PhysX on their triple SLI setups, or will they green light this PPU and release it as an nVidia board?
Both companies are into GPU or VPU accelerated physics simulations.
After Havoc announced it wouldn't optimise its API for GPU based computation, both NVidia and ATI were left in the cold until this NVidia-Ageia takeover.
AMD acquired ATI!
So it’s a logical decision from Nvidia to acquire Ageia to compete whit Intel in the future!
10Years from now Intel would make some very strong CPUs and GPUs with physics to, I'm sure!
cheers
DS
I'm so baked.
Computers had GPUs since the 80s or even earlier than that. How could somebody be so lame as to claim they INVENTED the GPU?
On topic, Nvidia is trying to steal some of AMD/ATIs shine at the moment. They can see how the 3870x2 is outperforming their current lineup of "VPAs" and are using hard PR tactics in order to keep their fans and investors happy. There is nothing wrong with that. And the consumer is bound to gain an overall better experience from future NVIDIA "VPAs".
Maybe the time has finally come for me to upgrade my trusty 7800GTXs? Lets wait and see...