Siemens Drives AI Leadership with US$10bn Altair Acquisition

Siemens has completed its US$10bn acquisition of Altair Engineering, a global leader in the provision of industrial AI and simulation software

Through the acquisition, Siemens gains Altair’s expertise in areas such as mechanical and electromagnetic simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), data science and AI. 

Bringing together these capabilities will extend Siemens’ leadership in simulation and AI, and expand its industrial software portfolio. 

Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG welcomed the Altair community of customers, partners and colleagues, saying the agreement was “big news” for the German technology leader. 

“Adding Altair’s groundbreaking innovations to the Siemens Xcelerator platform will create the world's most complete AI-powered design, engineering and simulation portfolio,” he says.

“Together, we will help our customers to innovate at the scale and speed that today's complexity-driven world demands.”

Transforming product manufacturing with AI

Altair provides comprehensive, open-architecture simulation, HPC and data analytics solutions that empower some of the world’s largest organisations to create more efficient and sustainable products. 

Its Altair HyperWorks tool is a design and simulation platform that helps engineers, scientists and designers tackle complex physics simulation for structures, motion, fluids, electromagnetics and more. 

This improves manufacturing and design processes and transforms how industries approach product design and development across every phase, from design through to validation. 

The addition of these capabilities to the Siemens stable will further enhance its comprehensive and leading digital twin technology, making simulation more accessible to companies of any size and industry. 

Siemens’ comprehensive digital twins already offers a unique approach to simulation technology, allowing users to maximise value for products and production. 

The technology makes it possible to gain actionable insights on products and product lifecycles, and improves strategic decision making. 

Altair’s technology will build on the existing success of the digital twins, enabling Siemens’ customers to innovate more effectively and bring complex products to market quickly. 

Next-level digital performance

The acquisition of Altair is part of Siemens’ ONE Tech Company programme, an initiative designed to ensure the company leverages technological disruptions and innovation opportunities in the market. 

The programme’s overarching vision is “to combine the real and digital worlds”. It is focused on acquisitions such as that of Altair, as well as investment in areas including software, AI-enabled products, sustainability and connected technologies. 

Roland says: “This is a boost to our strategy to combine the real and digital worlds, because we add mechanical and electromagnetic simulation to our industrial software.

“In the future, our customers can simulate the mechanical stress on their products. For example, what happens when a smart phone slides off your fingers and hits the floor? Then, we can build a better phone with the help of AI. 

“Or you do a crash test on a car in the virtual world without damaging a car in the real world. All this empowers our customers. They can innovate faster, and bring complex products to their markets faster, more efficiently and more sustainably."

Accelerating transformation

Moving forward, Altair’s technology will be added to the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform, a tool that enables customers to accelerate their digital transformation easier, faster and at scale. 

As part of the platform, Altair will join a curated portfolio of powerful ecosystem partners that deliver solutions to some of the most complex digitalisation challenges across industries.

The addition means that all Siemens customers, from engineers to generalists, will have access to new simulation expertise. 

This will enable them to optimise their high-performance computing processes, create new AI tools and perform data analytics to help accelerate innovation and digital transformation.

The acquisition of Altair, an American software company, adds to Siemens’ ongoing investment in the US - marked by recent factory expansions in California and Texas.  Over the past 20 years, Siemens has invested over US$100bn into the country.

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