What you need to know
- Microsoft announced its acquisition of Fungible Inc, a company that specializes in data processing units.
- The data processing units are used in datacenters and focus on high efficiency.
- Microsoft did not disclose how much it purchased Fungible for.
- The Fungible team will become part of Microsoft’s datacenter infrastructure engineering teams.
Microsoft has acquired Fungible, a company that specializes in data processing units (DPUs). Fungible’s technology is used for “accelerating networking and storage performance in datacenters with high-efficiency, low-power data processing units,” according to Microsoft’s announcement post on the purchase.
Few details of the deal were disclosed. It’s unknown how much Microsoft purchased Fungible for or when the deal will go through. Microsoft did clarify that the Fungible team will join Microsoft’s datacenter infrastructure engineering teams. As part of those teams, they will focus on “delivering multiple DPU solutions, network innovation and hardware systems advancements.”
Microsoft shared a brief announcement post (opens in new tab) on the acquisition on January 9, 2023:
“Today’s announcement further signals Microsoft’s commitment to long-term differentiated investments in our datacenter infrastructure, which enhances our broad range of technologies and offerings including offloading, improving latency, increasing datacenter server density, optimizing energy efficiency and reducing costs.”
Fungible also weighed in on the purchase:
“We are proud to be part of a company that shares Fungible’s vision and will leverage the Fungible DPU and software to enhance its storage and networking offerings. We would like to thank our loyal employees for their dedication and hard work over these last seven years and our customers, partners, and investors for their belief and support in our technology.”
According to the company’s website, Fungible invented its DPU to address the inefficiencies of scale-out data centers. The DPU enables “a high-performance, massively-scalable hyperdisaggregated infrastructure,” according to Fungible.
Microsoft explained that its acquisition of Fungible will allow it to improve latency and server density in datacenters while also optimizing energy efficiency and reducing costs.
