Acceleware Explained

Acceleware Ltd.
Type:	Public
Foundation:	2004
Location:	Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Key People:	Michal Okoniewski, Founder & CSO Geoff Clark, CEO Mike Tourigny, COO Tracy Grierson, CFO
Industry:	Oil Sands Technology
Products:	RF XL, Seismic Imaging Software
Revenue:	CAD$740.09k (2021)
Num Employees:	12 (Q4 2018)
Homepage:	https://www.acceleware.com

Acceleware Ltd. (TSX-V: AXE) is a Canadian innovator of clean-tech oil and gas technologies composed of two business units: Radio Frequency (RF) Enhanced Oil Recovery and Seismic Imaging Software. The company is currently running a commercial-scale, RF XL pilot project at Marwayne, Alberta, Canada, to advance and validate its heavy oil and oil sands electrification technology. Acceleware's seismic imaging software solutions offer imaging for oil exploration in complex geologies.

Acceleware is part of a larger computing industry trend towards parallel processing via multi-core and massively-parallel GPU hardware and software architectures.^[1]

Acceleware software can be used in the following industries: electromagnetics, oil and gas, medical imaging, security imaging, industrial product design, consumer product design, financial research, and academic research.

History

Acceleware was founded in 2004, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Extensive research on special-purpose hardware was conducted, and Acceleware developed competence-accelerating scientific computing software applications. Graphics processing units (GPUs) became the main hardware focus, as their parallel processing capabilities and extremely high memory bandwidth made them superior for accelerating scientific applications.^[2]

GPU Computing (using a graphics processing unit to compute mathematical algorithms), parallelizes complex tasks so that many equations may be calculated, at one time, as opposed to CPU computing which requires that these tasks be done in sequence. This parallelization results in a reduction of the time and costs required for highly complex and intensive simulations.^[3]

In January 2008, Acceleware entered into the seismic market, providing hardware acceleration for seismic migrations, a logical progression as they are based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, one of the world's hubs for oil and gas activity.^[4]

In July 2008, market conditions and lack of available venture capital forced Acceleware to scale back its growth plans and reduce staff. Today, the company remains focused on the electromagnetics, seismic, and engineering simulation markets. It has also adopted a more software-oriented process now that GPU computing technology has become more accepted and generally available.^[5]

In October 2018, Acceleware entered into an agreement with AMD to provide them with Software Engineering Expertise and Consulting Services.^[6]

In November 2019, Acceleware secured an investment from a Calgary-based oil sands producer for the RF XL pilot test of its radio frequency heating system.^[7]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Acceleware participated in the Faster, Together campaign to increase acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines.^{[8] [9]}

Milestones

2013

• Acceleware Reaches Milestone with 100th HPC Programming Course^[10]

2012

• Acceleware releases high-performance TTI AxRTM. A 2.5x improvement in speed over previous TTI AxRTM^[11]
• Acceleware introduces C++ AMP training courses in partnership with Microsoft
• Acceleware surpasses 90 training classes held, to over 1000 students

2010

• Appointment of Geoff Clark as CEO^[12]
• Acceleware partners with Crosslight^[13]
• Acceleware partners with Paradigm^[14]

2009

• Acceleware offers professional code-porting and training services^[15]

2008

• July – Acceleware undergoes a management restructuring and a major downsizing due to poor market conditions^[16]
• March – Acceleware enters the image reconstruction market
• January – Acceleware enters the seismic migration market

2007

• January – Nvidia invests $3 million in Accelware^[17]

2006

• January – Acceleware goes public on the TSX Venture Exchange (Symbol: AXE)

2005

• Accelerator V1.0 is launched at IEEE MTT-S IMS for the electromagnetic simulation market

Acceleware Products

Acceleware products are software libraries created to utilize the parallel processing capabilities of Nvidia GPUs to allow consumers to process difficult simulations, migrations, and other engineering tasks. They are offered as an SDK/API to software integrators or as a plug-in option to end users.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Viewpoint: Mass GPUs, not CPUs for EDA simulations . 2009.
2. Web site: NVIDIA 8800 GTX Exposed and Exploited. 2007.
3. Web site: Exploring weak scalability for FEM calculations on a GPU-enhanced cluster. 2007.
4. Web site: ROB TV. 2007.
5. Web site: NVIDIA Tesla Personal Supercomputer. 2008.
6. Web site: Acceleware Announces $2.5 Million Agreement with Advanced Micro Devices. 2018.
7. Web site: Acceleware secures investment from major oil sands producer. 2018-11-13. MINING.COM. en-US. 2019-10-07.
8. Web site: Acceleware . 2021-06-17 . "To help build vaccine confidence across Canada and encourage more people to get vaccinated, Acceleware has joined more than 100 organizations to support..." . 2023-02-12 . . en.
9. Web site: Home . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230211160252/https://fastertogether.ca/ . 2023-02-11 . 2023-02-12 . Faster Together . en.
10. Web site: Acceleware Reaches Milestone with 100th HPC Programming Course . 18 March 2013 . 27 March 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130818114506/http://acceleware.com/press-release/acceleware-reaches-milestone-100th-hpc-programming-course . 18 August 2013 . dead .
11. Web site: Acceleware Updates RTM Featuring Enhanced Imaging and NVIDIA Kepler Support . 14 August 2012 . 27 March 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120918031503/http://www.acceleware.com/press-release/acceleware-updates-rtm-featuring-enhanced-imaging-and-nvidia-kepler-support . 18 September 2012 . dead .
12. Web site: Appointment of Geoff Clark as CEO . 17 September 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100920221021/http://www.acceleware.com/press_release/acceleware-announces-appointment-geoff-clark-ceo . 20 September 2010 .
13. Web site: Acceleware partners with Crosslight . 19 January 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100712015931/http://www.acceleware.com/acceleware-delivers-100x-speed-solar-cell-simulations . 12 July 2010 .
14. Web site: Acceleware partners with Paradigm . 9 June 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100712015957/http://www.acceleware.com/press_release/acceleware-announces-partnership-paradigm . 12 July 2010 .
15. Web site: Acceleware Offers Professional Services . 4 March 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110707080138/http://www.acceleware.com/acceleware-launches-new-cuda-professional-services-offering . 7 July 2011 .
16. Web site: Acceleware Completes Management Restructuring, Reduces Expenditures and Refocuses Business Plan Following Withdrawal of Short Form Prospectus Offering. 22 July 2008.
17. Web site: NVIDIA invests $2.9M in Acceleware . https://archive.today/20130121212442/http://www.edn.com/article/CA6408991.html?text=%3Ftext=acceleware13 . dead . 21 January 2013 . 22 January 2007 .