Intel has agreed to acquire SigOpt, a San Francisco-based provider of a leading platform for the optimization of artificial intelligence (AI) software models.
SigOpt’s AI software technologies deliver productivity and performance gains across hardware and software parameters, use cases and workloads in deep learning, machine learning and data analytics.
Intel plans to use SigOpt’s software technologies across Intel’s AI hardware products to help accelerate, amplify and scale Intel’s AI software solution offerings to developers.
“SigOpt’s AI software platform and data science talent will augment Intel software, architecture, product offerings and teams, and provide us with valuable customer insights,” Raja Koduri, Intel senior vice president, chief architect and general manager of Architecture, Graphics and Software (IAGS).
Scott Clark, SigOpt CEO and co-founder, said: “By combining our AI optimization software with Intel’s decades-long leadership in AI computing and machine learning performance, we will be able to unlock entirely new AI capabilities for modelers.”
SigOpt’s team – including Clark and CTO and co-founder Patrick Hayes – will join the Machine Learning Performance team in IAGS.
SigOpt’s customer base includes Fortune 500 companies across industries, as well as leading research institutions, universities and consortiums. SigOpt’s software technologies will be available to data scientists and developers to enable better productivity and performance in solving real-life use cases.
Intel expects the AI silicon market to be greater than $25 billion by 2024. AI solutions drive meaningful revenue for the company with more than $3.8 billion in AI-driven revenue in 2019.
The combination of SigOpt’s software technologies and Intel hardware is expected to drive increased AI adoption. Intel’s AI software strategy is aimed at optimizing Intel’s hardware performance, providing tools to speed up the AI workflow process and building a consistent experience for developers with oneAPI.
