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AMI, formerly (and commonly) known as American Megatrends, is a developer of PC BIOS and UEFI firmware and a manufacturer of various PC hardware founded in 1985 originally as Quintessential Consultants Inc. (QCI), in Norcross, Georgia, United States. The company was later renamed to American Megatrends Inc., and then in 2020 to AMI.
Foundation
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The company was found by Subramonian Shankar and Pat Sarma with funds from a previous consulting venture, Access Methods Inc. (also AMI), found in 1979 in New York City[1]. Access Methods was a company owned by Pat Sarma and his partner Shankar. After AMIBIOS got released in 1985, legal issues between Sarma and his partners occurred, therefore Sarma renamed his new company, Quintessential Consultants Inc. (QCI), to American Megatrends Inc. (to keep the AMIBIOS acronym still), and bought out the rights for AMIBIOS from Access Methods.
The new company was owned by both Sarma and Shankar, with Sarma being the owner and Shankar being the vice-president. This partnership continued until 2001, when LSI Logic purchased the RAID Division of American Megatrends; American Megatrends then purchased all shares of the company owned by Sarma, making Shankar the majority owner.
In 2020, the company was renamed again to AMI, and in 2022 the headquarters were moved from Norcross to Building 800 at 3095 Satellite Boulevard in unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia, near the city of Duluth.