StackHPC
StackHPC is a Bristol-based professional services firm that designs, deploys and supports OpenStack infrastructure for research computing, HPC and AI workloads, using proprietary open-source tools Kayobe and Azimuth to serve universities, scientific institutes and sovereign-cloud operators across Europe and Africa.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2015
- HeadquartersBristol, United Kingdom
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What StackHPC does
StackHPC Ltd is a UK private limited company (registered number 09938332) headquartered in Bristol, founded in 2015, that designs, builds and supports OpenStack-based infrastructure for research computing, high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads. Its core open-source products are Kayobe — an infrastructure-as-code deployment tool for containerised OpenStack control planes built on Kolla and Kolla-Ansible — and Azimuth, a self-service portal that provisions science platforms such as Linux workstations, Jupyter notebooks, Slurm clusters and Kubernetes clusters (with Kubeflow, DaskHub and Pangeo support) over OpenStack or, since December 2025, over any Kubernetes cluster in standalone mode using OIDC, Crossplane and FluxCD. Supporting assets include an Ansible-driven Slurm appliance, the Release Train (a Pulp-backed artifact pipeline with GitHub Actions CI and HashiCorp Vault-issued certificates) and an Ark content server, all released as open source. The firm is a founding member of the Open Infrastructure Foundation, and its CTO co-chairs the OpenStack Scientific SIG.
The business monetises through professional services — architecture design, system integration, deployment and bespoke software engineering — and managed services covering third-level support, day-2 operations, version upgrades and training. Pricing is bespoke and not publicly disclosed; contracts are direct, enterprise-scale engagements rather than self-serve. Customers are research and scientific institutions (Wellcome Sanger Institute, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Cape Town CHPC, EPCC's Edinburgh International Data Facility, Cambridge University Dawn supercomputer on the UK national AI Research Resource, King's College London), public-sector and sovereign-cloud operators (ECMWF, 6G AI Sweden) and manufacturing/engineering bodies (Manufacturing Technology Centre). The team is small and distributed across the UK and France, with active hiring for Cloud Engineers and a stock-option scheme for staff.
Two TOP500 supercomputers (UM6P Toubkal at #99 and Cambridge CSD3 at #421) were delivered on StackHPC-deployed OpenStack, the first software-defined supercomputers on that list, and the firm's involvement in the Cambridge Dawn and 6G AI Sweden flagship AI clouds positions it as a reference deployment partner for sovereign and academic AI compute. Distribution is primarily via direct consultative sales, the OpenStack Marketplace, conference presence (OpenInfra Summit, SC, FOSDEM, ECMWF HPC Workshop), and a quarterly "Navigating Upstream" newsletter, with marketing amplified through open-source contributions and the company's free open-source products functioning as top-of-funnel lead generators.
StackHPC firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- StackHPC
- Legal name
- StackHPC Ltd
- Website
- https://stackhpc.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2015
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- StackHPC is a Bristol-based professional services firm that designs, deploys and supports OpenStack infrastructure for research computing, HPC and AI workloads, using proprietary open-source tools Kayobe and Azimuth to serve universities, scientific institutes and sovereign-cloud operators across Europe and Africa.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
StackHPC industry classification
Industry- Product category
- HPC and Research Computing Infrastructure Services
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Offshore Development Center (ODC) / Dedicated Team Services (BPAEAMAL)
Keywords
Where StackHPC is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Bristol
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
StackHPC business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Professional Services and Consultancy: StackHPC offers software engineering and consultancy services for designing, building, and supporting HPC and cloud infrastructures. Services include architecture design, system integration, software development, and support services. They work with clients through direct business development to facilitate commercial contracts.
- Managed Services and Support: StackHPC provides ongoing maintenance and support services, including third-level support for deployed systems, keeping systems updated with latest OpenStack and Ceph versions, and day-2 operations training.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
StackHPC product offering
Product offeringCore offering
StackHPC provides professional services and open source software for designing, building, and supporting OpenStack-based HPC, cloud, and AI infrastructures used by scientific research organisations. Its core software products are Kayobe (an infrastructure-as-code deployment tool for containerised OpenStack) and Azimuth (a self-service portal for deploying science platforms such as Jupyter notebooks, Slurm clusters, and Kubernetes clusters). The company also offers consultancy, architecture design, system integration, and day-2 managed support for OpenStack clouds.
Product overview
StackHPC develops OpenStack solutions for research computing, HPC, and AI use cases. The core portfolio includes Kayobe (OpenStack deployment tool built on Kolla-Ansible), Azimuth (self-service portal for science platforms), and the Slurm Appliance (HPC batch computing). StackHPC offers professional services including cloud design, deployment, and operations support. The Release Train service provides consistent, reproducible OpenStack deployments via tested package repositories and container images managed through Pulp. StackHPC actively contributes to OpenStack community through the Scientific SIG, Kolla, Magnum, and other projects.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Kayobe: A free and open source deployment tool for containerised OpenStack control planes, based on Kolla and Kolla-Ansible
- Azimuth
- Kolla
- Slurm Appliance
- Release Train
Products and services
- Kayobe Open source infrastructure-as-code deployment tool for containerised OpenStack control planes, built on Kolla and Kolla-Ansible. Provides hardware configuration, OS provisioning, and network configuration via version-controlled source repositories, used to deploy and manage OpenStack for HPC and research computing.
- Azimuth Self-service portal for managing science platforms on cloud infrastructure, providing one-click deployment of Linux workstations, Jupyter notebooks, Slurm clusters, Kubernetes clusters, JupyterHub, DaskHub, and Pangeo platforms. Designed for scientific computing and AI use cases, with a 2025 standalone mode that removes the OpenStack requirement.
- Azimuth Standalone Mode Standalone deployment mode of the Azimuth portal that operates on Kubernetes-only tenancies without requiring an underlying OpenStack cloud, extending the self-service portal to a broader set of infrastructure environments.
- Slurm Appliance
- OpenStack Consulting, Deployment, and Managed Support Services Professional services for designing, building, deploying, integrating, and supporting OpenStack-based research computing, HPC, and AI cloud infrastructures. Includes architecture design, system integration, software development, day-2 operations training, and third-level support for deployed systems.
- StackHPC Release Train Service for consistent, reproducible OpenStack deployments, providing tested package repositories, Kolla container images, binary artifacts, and Kayobe/Kolla configuration, managed through the Ark Pulp content server and GitHub Actions CI/CD.
- 6G AI Sweden AI Cloud Infrastructure High-performance AI cloud infrastructure deployment for 6G AI Sweden, featuring Nvidia HGX H200 GPUs, 400G NDR Infiniband, Bluefield-3 NICs, VAST Data storage, OpenStack Ironic for bare metal, and OVN Neutron networking with networking-mellanox driver for Infiniband partitions.
- Cambridge Dawn AI Supercomputer OpenStack-based AI supercomputer deployed for Cambridge University as a core component of the UK national AI Research Resource (AIRR), built using open infrastructure.
- EPCC Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF) Data Science Cloud Highly-available, resilient data science cloud delivered by StackHPC to the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) for the Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF), providing data analytics and storage services for research computing workloads.
- Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) Digital Factory Environment Secure multi-tenant OpenStack sandpit environment for the Manufacturing Technology Centre's Digital Manufacturing Accelerator programme, supporting simulations, ML, and visualisation workloads for industrial partners.
Quantifiable outcome
- StackHPC was involved in two software-defined supercomputers appearing in the Top500 list (UM6P Toubkal at #99 and Cambridge CSD3 at #421) - the first fully OpenStack-based supercomputers in the list.
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use StackHPC
Customer profileNamed customers11 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
StackHPC technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration22 records
AI capability6 records
Feature7 records
StackHPC partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Open Infrastructure Foundation (OpenInfra Foundation)coreStackHPC is a founding member of the Open Infrastructure Foundation. The company actively contributes to OpenStack through multiple SIGs and projects including the Scientific SIG (co-chaired by StackHPC's CTO), Kolla, Magnum, Ironic, and Blazar. This membership positions StackHPC as a key player in the open infrastructure ecosystem and enables deep community influence.
- ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)coreStackHPC collaborates with ECMWF on the European Weather Cloud and presents at the biennial ECMWF HPC Workshop. StackHPC's work on GPU reservations in Blazar (OpenStack reservation service) was presented to improve sharing of GPU devices in private clouds for weather and climate modelling.
- Verne GlobalminorStackHPC collaborates with Verne Global on sustainable HPC infrastructure (hpcDIRECT service), contributing to driving sustainability for cutting-edge research computing.
- OpenStack CommunitycoreStackHPC is an active member of the OpenStack community, contributing to core projects and promoting research computing use cases. The OpenInfra Foundation's OpenStack community has shifted focus to infrastructure and AI, responding to geopolitical and technological developments.
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) / IRIS / JASMINcoreStackHPC's Azimuth platform is based on prior work with JASMIN Cloud and the IRIS community, with appreciation expressed for STFC support. StackHPC works with DiRAC and JASMIN communities on research computing infrastructure.
- University of JosminorStackHPC ran a 7-week internship programme with Computer Science undergraduates from the University of Jos in Nigeria, teaching OpenStack, Magnum, and upstream contribution processes.
- ElevateHerminorStackHPC partnered with ElevateHer (a foundation committed to empowering Nigerian women in STEM) to provide internship opportunities for computer engineers, contributing to OpenStack upstream work.
- 6G AI SwedencoreStackHPC designed and deployed 6G AI Sweden's AI cloud infrastructure built on Nvidia HGX architecture with OpenStack, Kubernetes, and VAST Data storage. This is a flagship case study for StackHPC's AI cloud capabilities.
- Wellcome Sanger InstitutecoreStackHPC serves the Wellcome Sanger Institute as a client for HPC and cloud infrastructure for genomics research.
- SIB Swiss Institute of BioinformaticscoreStackHPC serves the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics as a client for cloud infrastructure for bioinformatics research computing.
- Cape Town Centre for HPC (CHPC)minorStackHPC partnered with CHPC and local partner Linomtha ICT to provide cloud infrastructure for South African researchers and academia, bringing OpenStack Kayobe to Cape Town.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
StackHPC competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Mirantis: Mirantis is the most direct competitor to StackHPC: a long-standing OpenStack professional services and product company providing cloud platform deployment, lifecycle management, and managed services to enterprises, telcos, and governments - the same buyer segment StackHPC targets.
Broad incumbents
- Canonical: Canonical offers Charmed OpenStack and Charmed Kubernetes alongside Ubuntu, providing both software distributions and professional services that overlap with StackHPC's deployment and support model, particularly in telco and research clouds.
- HPE Pointnext Services: HPE Pointnext delivers HPC and private cloud professional services around HPE hardware and software (incl. Cray HPC), competing for the same national-scale research computing and AI deployments StackHPC is winning in the UK and Sweden.
- NVIDIA (Bright Computing): Bright Computing (acquired by NVIDIA) provides cluster management software for HPC and AI environments, including Slurm-based schedulers; it is a tooling layer that complements or substitutes for parts of StackHPC's Azimuth/Slurm Appliance stack in AI cloud deployments.
- SUSE: SUSE provides SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Rancher (Kubernetes), and historically SUSE OpenStack Cloud, competing for enterprise open-source infrastructure spend with StackHPC and selling through partner-led delivery models.
- OVHcloud: OVHcloud operates a large OpenStack-based public cloud plus Bare Metal and Hosted Private Cloud services aimed at European sovereignty-sensitive workloads, a comparable customer segment to StackHPC's research and sovereign cloud buyers.
- Rackspace Technology: Rackspace was one of the original OpenStack public cloud providers and offers multi-cloud managed services and professional services across AWS, Azure, Google, and private OpenStack environments, competing for the same enterprise private-cloud engagements.
- Red Hat: Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift and Red Hat's broader hybrid cloud consulting compete for the same enterprise and telco OpenStack budget, but as part of a much larger portfolio spanning RHEL, OpenShift, and Ansible Automation Platform.
- Eviden (Atos HPC): Eviden (the Atos HPC and big-data business) is one of Europe's largest HPC systems integrators, selling end-to-end supercomputers to national labs and research institutions - direct adjacency to StackHPC's HPC/AI cloud delivery model.
Emerging players
- Platform9: Platform9 provides managed Kubernetes and OpenStack-as-a-service targeting edge and on-premises deployments; it overlaps with StackHPC's Azimuth-based self-service thesis but with a SaaS product wrapper rather than a services-led model.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
StackHPC social profiles
Digital presenceStackHPC compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
StackHPC financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
StackHPC leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
StackHPC funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
StackHPC M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about StackHPC
What does StackHPC do?
StackHPC provides professional services and open source software for designing, building, and supporting OpenStack-based HPC, cloud, and AI infrastructures used by scientific research organisations. Its core software products are Kayobe (an infrastructure-as-code deployment tool for containerised OpenStack) and Azimuth (a self-service portal for deploying science platforms such as Jupyter notebooks, Slurm clusters, and Kubernetes clusters). The company also offers consultancy, architecture design, system integration, and day-2 managed support for OpenStack clouds.
Is StackHPC a public or private company?
StackHPC is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was StackHPC founded?
StackHPC was founded in 2015. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is StackHPC based?
StackHPC is headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does StackHPC make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Professional Services and Consultancy is the primary driver. The others are managed Services and Support.
Who are StackHPC's main competitors?
Mirantis is listed as a direct peer. Broad incumbents are Canonical, HPE Pointnext Services, NVIDIA (Bright Computing), SUSE, OVHcloud, Rackspace Technology, Red Hat and Eviden (Atos HPC). Platform9 is listed as an emerging player.
Does StackHPC have an API?
No public API is recorded for StackHPC.
What industry is StackHPC in?
StackHPC's product category is HPC and Research Computing Infrastructure Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAEAMAL, Offshore Development Center (ODC) / Dedicated Team Services. Its NAICS code is 5415 and its SIC code is 7373.