Nvidia acquires SchedMD to tighten grip on AI data‑center software stack

Summary

Nvidia has acquired SchedMD, the company behind the open‑source Slurm workload scheduler used to manage large high‑performance computing and AI clusters. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Nvidia said it will continue distributing Slurm as open source while selling enterprise support, effectively pulling a critical piece of data‑center orchestration into its own portfolio. The deal underscores how much of Nvidia’s AI power comes not just from GPUs but from the surrounding software—CUDA, libraries, and now core scheduling infrastructure—that locks customers into its ecosystem. By owning Slurm, Nvidia can better optimize large training and inference jobs for its hardware, while making it harder for rival chip vendors to compete on equal footing in complex multi‑GPU environments. For AI customers, the upside is potentially smoother scaling and support, but it also concentrates even more leverage in Nvidia’s hands at a time when regulators and hyperscalers are already wary of its dominance.