SGI – Silicon Graphics International Corp

SGI – Silicon Graphics International Corp

Originally founded as Silicon Graphics Inc in the early 1980s the initial focus of the company was on developing a powerful semiconductor chip called the Geometry Engine.

The founder, Jim Clark, and a group of his Stanford graduate students designed the Geometry Engine to allow small computers to produce sophisticated three-dimensional graphics.

Before this revolutionary chip graphic simulations were almost exclusively done on large mainframe computers.

During the 90s SGI’s innovation made imagery such as the T-1000 villain in Terminator 2 possible, as well as the dinosaurs in Jurassic park and the animation in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

During this time the company was also breaking ground on new insights. The Chief Scientist at the time, John R. Mashy even coined the term “Big Data,” which is an all-encompassing term for any collection of data sets so large they become difficult to process.

In 2009, SGI’s specialty of creating high-performance computers increased when Rackable Systems purchased Silicon Graphics Inc.’s assets and renamed the surviving company Silicon Graphics International Corp.

Currently the company is a global leader in high-performance solutions for compute, data analytics, and data management. They are utilized by a variety of corporations from financial institutions to government entities, to the medical industry and beyond.

Today, notably their ICE X and UV systems are some of the fastest in use for commercial supercomputers. In addition to creating the fastest supercomputers in use today they are also at the top of the list in energy efficiency making them a leader in the industry.