AWSAmazon has acquired software company NICE for an undisclosed sum, the Web retailer announced via a blog post on Friday

NICE, based in Asti, Italy, makes software and provides services for “high performance and technical computing,” wrote Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for Amazon Web Services (AWS), in the blog post. High-performance computing are computers with high-level computational capacity or super computers. Barr didn’t specify how Amazon will use NICE.

One of NICE’s best-known products is EnginFrame, a software that simplifies the accessing and interaction with HPCs and visualization farms. According to Barr, NICE’s products “help customers to optimize and centralize their high-performance computing (HPC) and visualization workloads while also providing tools that are a great fit for distributed workforces making use of mobile devices.”

Barr added that the NICE team will remain intact.

Amazon appears to be upgrading AWS, the retailer’s cloud-computing platform, as it attempts to expand the business. On Tuesday, Amazon launched Lumberyard, a new 3D game engine that enables developers to build and operate cloud-based games with the help of AWS.

Historically, Amazon is not that acquisitive. It spent $690 million on acquisitions last year, a figure that many tech giants eclipse many times over in one deal. In 2014, the company spent $862 million on acquisitions, largely tied to its purchase of video game streaming service Twitch. In 2013, it spent just under $200 million buying other companies.

Last year, Amazon paid $350 million for Israeli chipmaker Annapurna Labs, and $296 million for Portland-based video processing startup Elemental Technologies.

A diagram that illustrates how EngineFrame works (Photo: NICE).
A diagram that illustrates how EngineFrame works (Photo: NICE).
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