California-based semiconductor chip maker Intel has entered into a definitive agreement with storage networking, high performance computing networking, and converged infrastructure offerings provider QLogic to acquire the product lines of and certain assets related to its InfiniBand business.
With the acquisition, Intel bolsters its networking portfolio and provides scalable high- performance computing (HPC) fabric technology as well as support the company’s vision of innovating on fabric architectures to achieve ExaFLOP/s performance by 2018.
An ExaFLOP/s is a quintillion computer operations per second, a hundred times more than today’s fastest supercomputers.
Under the acquisition, a significant number of the employees associated with InfiniBand business are expected to accept offers to join Intel and the deal is expected to close by the end of the current quarter pending customary closing conditions being met.
Intel Data Center and Connected System Group vice-president and general manager Kirk Skaugen said the technology and expertise from QLogic provide important assets to provide the scalable system fabric needed to execute on this vision.
"Adding QLogic’s InfiniBand product line to our networking portfolio will bring increased options and exceptional value to our datacenter customers," said Skaugen.
