ARM Ltd, the world’s leading semiconductor IP company, has just purchased a company developed out of high performance computing research at the University of Warwick in an £18 million pound deal that:

• Provides funding for even more technology research and entrepreneurial activity at the University of Warwick as the University still owned 4.85% of the company at sale
  
  

• Is a particular success for the work of Warwick Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Warwick, which helps commercialise innovations produced from world-leading research at the University, as it is the biggest ever sale of a company “spun out” from the University’s research.

Michael Rudgyard, Allinea’s founder and a former lecturer at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick, commented:

“Having worked as an academic in massively parallel computing problems, I had always believed that there was a market need for tools that would allow developers to build, debug and optimise applications to run across very large numbers of processors – these are traditionally used to solve problems in science, engineering and finance. Today’s largest supercomputers now have 100,000s of processors, and millions of computing cores, so it is exceptionally challenging to develop applications that can make effective use of this computing power. Allinea has created tools that help to ensure that this is possible, and the acquisition by ARM shows just how important the technology is, not only for HPC, but also for next-generation artificial intelligence and machine learning applications.” 

 

Allinea Software, which creates software tools for developing and optimising high performance computing applications, was created in 2009 after a management buyout from another University of Warwick spinout. That MBO was backed by West Midlands funder Mercia Technologies, and Midven’s Advantage Growth Fund.

Allinea has offices in the United States, Europe and Japan, and its software is used in around 70% of the world's largest supercomputers.

 

Quentin Compton-Bishop, chief executive of Warwick Ventures, said:

 

"This is a tribute to the quality of Warwick’s research and the vibrant enterprise community in the West Midlands. This success will enable the University and Warwick Ventures to continue to support the commercialisation of innovations into products and services that benefit people worldwide.”

For further information please contact:

 

Peter Dunn, Director of Press and Policy

University of Warwick

Tel UK 024 76523708 office

07767 655860 mobile

Tel Overseas:

Email p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk

 

PR901 PJD 20^th December 2016