The deal signals the latest boost for Belfast’s thriving technology sector
Belfast, UK – March 3, 2020 – Titan IC, the leading developer of network intelligence (NI) and security technology has announced that it has reached an agreement to be acquired by Mellanox, a leading supplier of high–performance, end–to–end smart interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems.
The deal will combine best in class networking and deep packet inspection to accelerate search and big data analytics across a broad range of applications in data centers worldwide.
David Moore with Titan Founders: Dwayne Burns, Sakir Sezer, Godfrey Gaston
Titan IC was established in Belfast in 2007 as a spin out from QUBIS, the commercialisation arm of Queen’s University, and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies(CSIT). Headquartered in the high–tech heart of Belfast’s Titanic Quarter,Titan IC’s world class team will become the center of advanced network intelligence research and development for Mellanox.
David Moore, Head of Spinouts and Investments at QUBIS commented “QUBIS have supported Titan since incorporation and we are delighted that this innovative technology will now be deployed on a global basis as part of Mellanox. “
Mellanox CEO and president Eyal Waldman and Titan CEO Noel McKenna were today greeted at the CSIT headquarters by the principal investigator at CSIT Máire O’Neill.
“We are pleased to become part of Mellanox and together we will accelerate the pace of innovation and will advance network intelligence to new levels of performance and insight,” said Noel McKenna, CEO, Titan IC. “We have worked with Mellanox for many years to integrate our RXP regular expression processor into their advanced line of BlueField I/O Processing Units (IPUs). Now as part of Mellanox, we will be able to achieve new capabilities for cyber intelligence, intrusion detection and protection, and advanced data analytics applications.”
The acquisition will further strengthen Mellanox’s network intelligence capabilities delivered through the company’s advanced ConnectX and BlueField families of SmartNIC and I/O Processing Unit (IPU) solutions.
“Network Intelligence is an important technology when combined with our industry–leading networking portfolio of switches, SmartNICs, and IPUs,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO Mellanox Technologies. “Our customers will benefit from the deep analytics and enhanced security that will be delivered by the integration of our best–in–class Ethernet and InfiniBand products and world–leading deep packet inspection and analytics technologies from Titan IC. With this acquisition, our M&A investments total more than 1.2 billion dollars to date and more than 53 million dollars invested in startups to further our intelligent networking strategy.”
Professor Máire O’Neill, Director of CSIT, commented: “As a spin–out from CSIT, the Centre for Secure Information Technologies at Queen’s University Belfast, we are delighted to see the Titan IC team embark on this new chapter of their journey. It has been a pleasure to help support the growth and success of Titan over the years and we wish to continue the collaboration with our research teams at the university.”