Austin-based Hypergiant Industries, which is focused on creating new products using artificial intelligence for businesses, has hired a heavy-hitter in the software industry, Mohammed Farooq, as its new Chief Technology Officer and GM Products.

Farooq also joining Hypergiant Industries’ board of directors. He previously worked as general manager with IBM Global Technology Services where he helped to build IBM’s hybrid and multi-cloud managed services business into a $35 billion business.

He joined IBM upon IBM’s acquisition of Farooq’s cloud software company, Gravitant, a pioneer in the hybrid multi-cloud market space. Before that, Farooq worked as Chief Technology Officer for the State of Texas for six years.

“Mohammed is a leader with decades of experience in the software industry particularly focused on scaling large software businesses. He helped transform IBM’s clients to digital and AI enterprises driven by hybrid and multi-cloud architectures that Mohammed developed,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Hypergiant Industries, said in a news release. “It has been a pleasure working with Mohammed on Hypergiant’s core offerings, Go To Market strategies and technology portfolio, and now officially bringing him on full time to the company.”

At Hypergiant Industries, Farooq will have a technical and operations role in developing Hypergiant’s core AI platform and distributed cloud services.

“I’m excited to further lead the development of the core distributed AI technology platform and SaaS applications portfolio for Hypergiant,” Farooq said in a statement. “Hypergiant is successfully enabling AI solutions with clients in the Space, Defense, and Industry Supply Chain verticals. It’s exciting to work with these client use cases to deliver the next generation distributed cloud and AI offerings spanning clouds, edge, IoT, and 5G technologies. Hypergiant hits the market at the perfect time and has the right talent, culture, and leadership to accelerate that timing. I’m thrilled to be taking on a leadership role in guiding the organization forward.”

Hypergiant serves clients in space, defense, and critical infrastructure. It has recent partnerships with the United States Air Force and Sumitomo in Japan.

Hypergiant has been making several key new hires in the last year bringing on Mark Arnold, as its vice president of corporate development, Mark Katz as Deputy General Counsel, and Will Griffin as its vice president of ethics and diversity.

Hypergiant Industries, founded in 2018, has 200 employees with offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.