Siemens announced the completion of its acquisition of Altair Engineering Inc. earlier this year. Altair is one of the leading providers of simulation, high-performance computing and data analytics software. The deal, valued at approximately $10 billion, positions Siemens as the owner of what it calls “the most complete AI-powered portfolio of industrial software” available today.
Siemens’s acquisition of Altair brings Altair’s suite of simulation and data analytics tools under the Siemens Digital Industries Software umbrella. These tools will be folded into Siemens Xcelerator, the company’s already expansive simulation portfolio. They are expected to enhance the effectiveness and usability of digital twin models.
With this deal, Siemens is aiming not just to bolster its offerings for large-scale industrial customers, but to “democratize access” to advanced simulation—making it available to smaller manufacturers and startups that have traditionally lacked the resources to deploy enterprise engineering applications. The company’s leadership sees this as key to accelerating innovation cycles across industries from aerospace to automotive to energy.
“By integrating Altair’s simulation and AI capabilities, we’re fundamentally changing the speed and intelligence with which companies can design and deliver complex products,” said Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG.
The acquisition is the latest in a series of moves designed to pivot Siemens toward its vision of becoming a “ONE Tech Company”—a strategic transformation centered on increasing its share of digital revenue. It also adds to Siemens’ deepening U.S. footprint, joining recent manufacturing and R&D investments in California and Texas. According to the company, Siemens has invested more than $100 billion in the U.S. over the past two decades.
Industry observers say the Altair acquisition could reshape the competitive landscape for industrial software, particularly as Siemens and rivals like Dassault Systèmes and Synopsys race to incorporate AI across their applications. By integrating Altair’s physics-based solvers and machine-learning tools, Siemens is betting it can deliver not just digital twins, but intelligent, self-optimizing systems.
The complete integration of Altair’s technology into the Siemens Xcelerator ecosystem is already underway. The company is on its way towards a workflow where AI enhances every step of the product lifecycle—from concept and simulation to real-world operation.
Similar Simulation
If it’s not careful, the 150-year-old German manufacturing conglomerate Siemens AG will soon be seen as a U.S. software company. Siemens’s wholly owned, based-in-America, Siemens Digital Industries Software, has been on a shopping spree like no other. In the last ten years, it has acquired EDA and simulation software companies. Siemens acquired CD-adapco for its CFD applications in 2016 for $970 million and later the same year, acquired Mentor for EDA (for semiconductors) for $4.5 billion, which was at the time the biggest deal in the design and engineering software industry. That record stood until 2019 when Dassault Systèmes acquired Medidata for $5.8 billion. Then Siemens startled everyone by acquiring Altair for a whopping $10 billion in a deal that just closed.
Unlike previous acquisitions, where it was clear that Siemens was adding to its software portfolio, the Altair acquisition creates many duplicate applications. One might argue that in some cases, Altair’s software was more capable, but there’s also an argument to be made that Siemens’ simulation software was more than good enough.
| Function | Siemens Simcenter | Altair HyperWorks |
| Finite Element Analysis (FEA) | Simcenter 3D (NX Nastran, Samcef, Abaqus interface) | OptiStruct, Radioss, SimSolid, HyperMesh |
| Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Multiphysics | Simcenter STAR-CCM+, Simcenter FLOEFD, Simcenter X | AcuSolve, ultraFluidX, nanoFluidX |
| System Simulation (1D) | Simcenter Amesim | Altair Activate |
| Optimization / Design Exploration | HEEDS (via Red Cedar acquisition) | Altair HyperStudy, Altair Design Explorer |
| Model-Based Systems Engineering | Simcenter System Architect | Altair SmartWorks, Compose |
| Electromagnetics | Simcenter MAGNET, SPEED, Motorsolve | Altair Flux, FluxMotor, Feko |
Was it the AI?
If not, the incremental improvements in basically similar software were perhaps to capture the lead horse in the AI race. For 5 years, Altair has been on a mission to establish itself as an AI company and not be seen as just another simulation company. As early as 2020, Altair acquired Univa for its “HPC (high performance computing “and artificial intelligence (AI) on-premises and in the cloud.”
On February 11, 2021, Altair, the company, started making its AI mission a standard opening in its press release. The Altair Announces Comprehensive Electronic System Design Capabilities – Accelerates Development of Smarter, Connected Products press release introduces it as “a global technology company providing software and cloud solutions in the areas of simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI)…” [The emphasis is ours].
Two years later, the we-are-AI message was promoted to the headline, as the following press releases prove:
- March 16, 2023 – Altair Announces Altair RapidMiner: One Converged Platform for Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence
- June 6, 2023 – Altair Global Survey Reveals Significant Opportunities to Improve Efficiency, Scale, and Success of Enterprise AI and Data Projects
- November 28, 2023 –Launch of Altair RapidMiner 2023 Platform Delivers Next-Generation Generative AI Capabilities
- April 18, 2024 – Altair Acquires Cambridge Semantics, Powering Next-Generation Enterprise Data Fabrics and Generative AI
- April 10, 2024 – Altair to Showcase AI-Powered Engineering Capabilities at Hannover Messe 2024
- June 20, 2024 – Altair Named a Leader in the June 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms
- In July of 2024, Altair released HyperWorks 2024 and touted its AI enhancements. It was announced as a “landmark AI-enhanced engineering platform” with generative design (shape optimization), PhysicsAI and HPC/cloud-enabled AI capabilities.
- July 18, 2024 – Altair to Showcase Cutting-Edge AI-Powered Engineering at Farnborough International Airshow 2024
- September 2, 2024 – Altair Acquires KSK Analytics; Expands AI Reach in Japan and Asia Pacific
- September 5, 2024 – Altair Announces Crown Point Technologies as U.S. and Europe Data Analytics and AI Reseller
AI is the New Oil
Siemens Digital Software, the U.S.-based corporation (Hq: Plano, TX), has the enviable position of a ready market in Siemens’ manufacturing and energy divisions. But that does not seem to curb the giant’s appetite. Siemens seems intent on supplying design, engineering and manufacturing to the manufacturing world at large. While Altair’s traditional simulation applications may have been redundant, it was probably Altair’s exploration of big data and implementation of AI that made them more than just a simulation company.
Altair had made big moves in big data when big data was the buzzword. The era, where CEOs would declare “data was the new oil” to justify excessive investment in data generation and analysis, has been far surpassed by the AI phenomenon. Altair jumped from the big data wave to the AI wave.
Positioning Altair as a company looking into the leading, most attention-grabbing technology, whether it be data or AI, proved to be a wise move. In a time when hard-core simulation was seen as the domain of a limited clientele, hardly democratic, AI was grabbing everyone’s attention. What happens if you didn’t? Remember Nastran? Once the preeminent simulation software, MSC, makers of the leading commercial version of Nastran, stuck to its core business and customers. But since it never rode the latest technology wave, all it could do was be acquired by Hexagon and effectively disappear from view.