Altair has had an extraordinary year, marked by significant advancements across our product portfolio. From groundbreaking AI-powered engineering solutions to strategic acquisitions (Cambridge Semantics and Metrics Design Automation) and industry awards (Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms), we've solidified our position as a leader in the technology landscape. As we reflect on our achievements to date, the upcoming Supercomputing '24 (SC24) conference event will provide an opportunity to revisit Altair's journey in high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud computing.

Through our vision, dedication, innovation and investment, Altair has maintained its position as a leading provider of HPC and cloud solutions with our Altair® HPCWorks® platform. From our history in HPC and cloud to our unique software portfolio to our emphasis on support and consulting, these are the critical components for Altair's future HPC and cloud offerings and how we plan to continue pushing the boundaries of computational intelligence through HPC.

Altair’s History in HPC and Cloud

The tech landscape is notorious for its rapid shifts, with once-promising trends fading as quickly as they emerge. Amidst this volatile environment, Altair has consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to anticipate market trends and customer needs, often years ahead of the curve. This foresight has solidified Altair's position as a visionary in HPC and cloud computing. 

As early as the 2000s, Altair recognized the transformative potential of HPC and cloud technology. We understood the growing sophistication of simulation and data analytics would necessitate scalable and accessible HPC resources. For organizations seeking to harness the full value of their data and embrace digital transformation, HPC was an indispensable tool.

Our journey began in 2003 with the acquisition of portable batch systems (PBS), a pioneering batch scheduling technology developed by the NASA Ames Research Center. This acquisition marked the foundation of Altair's comprehensive HPC workload management portfolio. Over the years, we've expanded our offerings to include solutions like Altair® PBS Professional® for massively parallel workloads and Altair® Accelerator™ for high-throughput tasks. Beyond traditional job and CPU optimization, we focus on optimizing infrastructure across GPUs, I/O, storage, and cloud environments, ensuring our customers have the most advanced tools available.

Decades of building our HPC portfolio have yielded a wealth of expertise and innovation. The creation of Altair HPCWorks, a unified platform that integrates our diverse tools and technologies, was a significant milestone. This platform delivers an open, intuitive, and scalable experience, reflecting our commitment to democratizing HPC. Our unwavering focus on research and development has been instrumental in driving this progress and realizing our vision. 

Altair HPCWorks: Unique Approach, Unparalleled Results 

While staying within our simulation roots might have been the easier path, Altair chose a different course. We knew simply dipping our toes into HPC and cloud would not suffice – which is why we dove headfirst, committed to building a platform of unequaled size, scope, and flexibility. This dedication resulted in Altair HPCWorks, which, along with Altair® HyperWorks® for design and simulation and Altair® RapidMiner® for data analytics and AI, creates a second-to-none technology portfolio.

This comprehensive approach has resonated. Not only do Altair's design and simulation customers trust us for HPC, but so do many of the world's Top500 supercomputers and leading chip designers. Altair HPCWorks stands out as a truly unique solution, offering unmatched speed, efficiency, and productivity. It seamlessly manages resources on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid configurations. Furthermore, it enables effortless scaling and integrates flawlessly with all four major cloud providers: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Designed for everyone—from seasoned experts to novices, engineers, designers, administrators, and beyond—Altair HPCWorks empowers some of the world's most critical HPC and high-throughput workloads across diverse industries like manufacturing, electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor design, financial services, and more.

The Future is Scalable and Autonomous

We believe the best is yet to come for Altair HPCWorks. As companies push boundaries in simulation, data, and AI fueled by HPC, we have also been redefining the capabilities of HPC technology itself. Advancements in autonomous HPC will help HPC stakeholders work faster, smarter, and more efficiently, and HPC end users will reach breakthroughs quicker as AI identifies the most optimal way to serve up their problem-solving power. With such a comprehensive toolkit, our customers continuously discover innovative ways to combine workflows and create solutions. 

Having witnessed Altair's HPC and cloud capabilities evolve for nearly three decades, I can confidently say it is a remarkable feat and a testament to our forward-thinking vision. Throughout our history, we've embraced calculated risks and tackled ambitious internal projects. Driven by our core values – pioneering spirit and a relentless pursuit of "business firsts" – we've achieved success beyond what many thought possible.

However, our success goes beyond just technology. While Altair's technology is world-class, it's our unwavering commitment to being a true innovation partner that sets us apart. After all, Altair HPCWorks wasn't born in a vacuum; it's the culmination of listening to our customers and integrating the features they need to unlock computational brilliance. 

As Altair prepares for SC24, we're excited to showcase our unique vision of HPC-enabled computational intelligence for the information age.

To learn more about Altair HPCWorks, visit https://altair.com/altair-hpcworks.