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
But I mean 10years and Intel is in Leading position! Because "They have the money!"
And Money Talks! :D
They just Need a Good name for it! Like Radeon and GeForce
:Intel "Cheetah 9800XXXL" :D or "Intel Andromeda Hyper Galactic Ultra Large Very Fast Ass Kicker" :D:D:D
or so...
The orginal Voodoo came in '96, while the TNT came in '97.
no nvidia didnt really invent the gpu/vpu chip they where just the first to market it at genral gamers/users.acctualy the nforce5+ chipsets are ULI rebadges, they are based off of what nvidia got when they bought ULI.
Havoc stoped the GPU phsyics because Intel bought them, hence havoc will eather endup supporting ONLY intel videocards or they will die as i have said in the past when the intel/havoc murder happened.
Nvidia is just doing this so they can be the only ones to support Agena PPU based games, there are a few today ut3 for example.
Hopefully ati/amd step up and find some game companys to support their shader based PPU tech......
alot of the problem here is that they dont have a singel API behind gpu phsyics, if they could come up with an API that all game devs could use then just support it with drivers like d3d and opengl then it would mean most game devs would probbly be willing to support gpu phsyics......but as it stands we are all being jipped.
this wont really change the amdti vs nvidia wars as not alot of games are currently using ppu's and i cant see any more picking it up when ati and nvidia have had gpu as ppu tech for a few years now......well ati has, since the x1k line ati cards have been powerfull enought to run as a ppu :/
3Dfx Voodoo oh that vas a Time!
I hade a Voodoo2 with 8MB of RAM :)
I Was a king with it in Quake 2 :D
Then I hade a Voodoo3 3000 16MB RAM, but in this time period came the GeForce!
Voodoo people made a mistake with Voodoo 5 and that’s the end of the story!
But that’s history!
their 2nd worst mistake that lead to their downfall, saying 32bit was pointless in games and that their dithered 16bit was just as good......
Thank you...
7900 Burn baby burn
G80
---------------
Also, I agree that Nvidia did not invent the GPU. They may have called it a GPU but they did not invent it.
But rest assured I think that we will be seeing some interesting developments happening from this merger. Who knows maybe we can even see a combination GPU and PPU on the same card But then again that would make the whole point of PPU's pointless, so I still think that there is a need for a seperate PPU card in a slot (not on the Motherboard)
I can see nVidia making another move at this point, as this acquisition came out of nowhere - TBH, I wasn't expecting to see nVidia buy AGIEA any time soon . . .
According to some analysis that I have read around the net, Ageia wanted to sell and was knocking on many doors looking for a buyer. Amd said no, mainly because they couldn't afford another adquisition right know or because they wanted to lower the price. When Ageia contacted Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang decided it was a good deal and bought. And for about $150 million (rumors) sure it is a good deal for a company that earns billions per quarter.