Nvidia has finally completed its acquisition of Run:ai, which has been in the works since the GPU giant announced in April that it was acquiring the artificial intelligence software company. Run:ai provides GPU orchestration software that can organize GPU groups more efficiently, and has been a close partner of Nvidia since 2020; in fact, the only GPUs currently supported by Run:ai are those manufactured by Nvidia. The company was founded in 2018, around the same time that Nvidia began venturing into artificial intelligence using techniques like deep learning super-sampling. The company said it will open source its software.
Neither company confirmed the value of the deal, but Nvidia reportedly paid around $700 million to acquire Run:ai.
Given Nvidia’s critical importance to the AI industry on the hardware side, it’s not surprising that the green giant also emphasizes software, which represents vertical integration of Nvidia’s business. However, thanks to the closed-source CUDA software launched in 2007, the GPU company already has considerable control over the software. opponents like AMD’s ROC Have been trying to find an opening.
Acquiring Run:ai would have further expanded the size of Nvidia’s walled garden, but Run:ai founders Omri Geller and Ronen Dar say that won’t happen.
“In line with our open platform philosophy, as part of NVIDIA, we will continue to give AI teams the freedom to choose the tools, platforms and frameworks that best fit their needs,” the press release written by the pair reads. “We will continue to strengthen our partnerships and work with the ecosystem to offer a variety of AI solutions and platform options.”
The two said they also plan to make Run:ai’s software open source, but did not give details on how that would happen or when.
Why Nvidia only open sourced Run:ai after completing the acquisition is unclear. This may be a condition set by Run:ai themselves, as Geller and Dahl cited their “open platform philosophy” in their joint statement. Open source software may also help convince regulators to allow the acquisition to go through as Nvidia faces intense scrutiny in both the United States and the European Union.
However, the open source Run:ai software may come with a caveat: It’s unclear whether Nvidia will provide expansion services through the open source Run:ai software.
Regardless of the progress, however, Nvidia appears to be further expanding its influence in the field of artificial intelligence. This could force AMD and Intel (Nvidia’s two main rivals in the GPU space) to respond in some way, perhaps through acquisitions of their own or partnerships.