AMD will buy Pensando for $1.9B

Advanced Micro Devices announced a definitive agreement to acquire distributed services platform maker Pensando for $1.9 billion.

The value of the deal doesn’t include working capital and other adjustments, and it is expected to close in the second quarter.

Pensando’s platform will expand the AMD product portfolio with a high-performance packet processor and a software stack already deployed at scale across cloud and enterprise customers, helping AMD to deliver on its vision of the next-generation datacenter.

With the addition of Pensando, AMD said it will be even better equipped to deliver a broad portfolio of high-performance and adaptive solutions to address the exploding demand for datacenter computing capabilities.

The Pensando tech will combine AMD’s central processing units (CPUs), graphics process units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and adaptive computing engines with Pensando’s packet processor, and software technologies will enable AMD to offer a broad portfolio of compute engines that have been optimized for different workloads.

“To build a leading-edge data center with the best performance, security, flexibility and lowest total cost of ownership requires a wide range of compute engines,” said Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO, in a statement. “All major cloud and [original equipment manufacturer] customers have adopted Epyc processors to power their datacenter offerings. Today, with our acquisition of Pensando, we add a leading distributed services platform to our high-performance CPU, GPU, FPGA, and adaptive system-on-chip (SoC) portfolio. The Pensando team brings world-class expertise and a proven track record of innovation at the chip, software and platform level which expands our ability to offer leadership solutions for our cloud, enterprise and edge customers.”

Pensando’s industry-leading distributed services platform consists of a fully-programmable packet processor and software stack that enables AMD to deliver a broad portfolio of high-performance and adaptive solutions to address exploding datacenter computing demand.

With the addition of Pensando, AMD will have the capability to innovate at the chip, software, and platform level and deliver optimized solutions with performance and value for their cloud and enterprise customers.

Pensando specializes in chip technology and software optimized for data flow orientated workloads that can be used across a broad set of applications including smart switch.

Pensando’s platform has a programmable packet processor that can be distributed throughout a network to efficiently accelerate multiple infrastructure services simultaneously, offloading workloads from the CPU and increasing overall system performance. Combined with Pensando’s full system software stack, the platform offers performance, scale, flexibility and security.

“We are excited to join the AMD family. Our shared cultures of innovation, excellence and relentless focus on partners and customers make this an ideal combination. Together, we have the talent and tools to deliver on our customers’ vision for the future of computing,” said Pensando CEO Prem Jain, in a statement. “In less than five years Pensando has assembled a best-in-class engineering team that are experts in building systems together with a rich, deep ecosystem of partners and customers who have currently deployed over 100,000 Pensando platforms into production. Joining together with AMD will help accelerate growth in our core business and enable us to pursue a much larger customer base across more markets.”

Jain and the Pensando team will join AMD as part of the Data Center Solutions Group, led by AMD senior vice president Forrest Norrod. Pensando will remain focused on executing their product and technology roadmaps, now with additional scale to accelerate their business and address growing market opportunities across a broader number of customers.

The products are fully programmable and software-defined, making them better for customers who require the acceleration of multiple, simultaneous, infrastructure services at scale with low power consumption. Cloud providers such as Oracle Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and others deployed Pensando solutions with software-defined networking, security, encryption, NVMe/TCP network storage on the same card.

In addition to the P4 programmable processor, Pensando also has an optimized software stack offering high-performance infrastructure service acceleration for cloud providers.

DBO Partners is acting as financial advisor to AMD and Latham & Watkins is serving as its legal advisor. Centerview Partners is acting as financial advisor to Pensando and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as legal counsel for Pensando.