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AdaCore
TypePrivate
Founded1994
Founders
  • Cyrille Comar
  • Robert Dewar
  • Franco Gasperoni
  • Richard Kenner
  • Edmond Schonberg
HeadquartersNew York and Paris
Products
  • GNAT Pro
  • SPARK Pro
  • GNAT Pro for C/C++
  • GNAT Pro for Rust
  • GNAT Dynamic Analysis Suite
  • GNAT Static Analysis Suite
  • CodeSonar
OwnerBattery Ventures
Number of employees
200 (2026)
Websiteadacore.com

AdaCore is a privately held software company that develops programming tools for high-integrity systems in Ada, SPARK, C/C++, and Rust.[1] Headquartered in New York City and Paris, the company was founded in 1994 and supplies development and verification tools used in the aerospace, defense, automotive, rail, and medical device industries.[1]

History

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AdaCore's origins lie in an academic project at New York University that began around 1980, when concerns about whether the newly designed Ada language was implementable led the US Air Force to a contract to New York University to build an executable definition of it. The resulting Ada/Ed system, an interpreter written in the high-level set-theoretic language SETL[2], served as an operational definition of Ada 83.[3]

When Ada underwent its first major revision (Ada 9X, which became Ada 95), the NYU team received a contract from the US Air Force to prototype the new language features and give feedback to the design team, then led by Tucker Taft.[4] This was to be a compiler, not an interpreter. The GNAT project started in 1992; the contract required the GNU General Public License for all development.[2] GNAT, the GNU NYU Ada Translator, was an Ada front-end for the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) compiler suite. The front-end was developed by the New York University team led by Robert Dewar and Edmond Schonberg, while a Florida State University team under Theodore Baker designed the original concurrency components of the runtime.[5] Richard Kenner was the main author of “Gigi”, the GNAT to GNU interface that sat between the Ada components of the front end and GCC[6]

In August 1994, members of the NYU team created Ada Core Technologies, Inc. in New York, founded by Dewar, Schonberg, and Kenner, launching with a contract in hand from Silicon Graphics.[5] A Paris-based sister company, ACT Europe, was founded soon after, and led by Cyrille Comar and Franco Gasperoni, to serve the European market. The two companies become one company officially in 2012, but had been operating as one earlier[7].

Over the following decades, the product line expanded beyond the compiler. The two companies jointly launched the GNAT Programming System (GPS) IDE, later renamed GNAT Studio.[8] In 2004, AdaCore created the GNAT Academic Program (GAP) to encourage Ada in university curricula.[9] In January 2012, AdaCore merged with SofCheck, Inc., the Massachusetts company founded by Ada 95 lead designer Tucker Taft; the two had previously co-developed the CodePeer static analysis tool based on SofCheck Inspector, and Taft joined AdaCore as Director of Language Research. Robert Dewar served as CEO until 2012 and as President until his death from cancer on June 30, 2015.[10]

On February 1, 2021, AdaCore acquired Componolit GmbH, a Dresden-based provider of formal verification tools for trusted systems, whose RecordFlux technology formally describes, tests, and implements binary communication protocols.[11] The company also broadened its language focus: it partnered with Altran (now Capgemini Engineering) to extend Ada to the formally verifiable SPARK variant of Ada, C and C++, and partnered with Ferrous Systems[12] to bring safety-certified Rust toolchains to market, joining the Rust Foundation in 2023 and jointly producing the Ferrocene Language Specification[13]. The partnership ended in 2023, with AdaCore releasing its own Rust product, GNAT Pro for Rust and Ferrous Systems continuing Ferrocene independently[14].

In March 2024, Battery Ventures acquired a majority stake in AdaCore[1][15]. The transaction was structured as a growth recapitalization and added Battery executive Robbie Payne to AdaCore's board with Franco Gasperoni continuing as CEO[16].

In June 2025, AdaCore and CodeSecure announced a merger agreement; CodeSecure was formed in 2023 when Battery Ventures acquired GrammaTech's software products division, including the CodeSonar and CodeSentry product lines.[17][15] The combined company operates under the AdaCore brand with headquarters in Paris and New York, with Franco Gasperoni as CEO.[18][19]

Markets

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AdaCore’s tools are used in the development of software for commercial avionics, military systems, space, air traffic management, automotive systems, rail signaling, and medical devices.[1] These systems often require safety or security certification against functional safety standards such as DO-178C, EN 50128, ISO 26262, IEC 61508 and others. In 2019, NVIDIA announced it was working with AdaCore to use Ada and SPARK in security-critical firmware for its system-on-a-chip products, including autonomous driving applications targeting ISO 26262 compliance. [20][21]

Open-source contributions

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AdaCore products are based on open source toolchains; the company contributed the GNAT front end to GCC in 2001[9] and employs maintainers of GDB[22] and sponsors the Alire project[23]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 McGlashan, Craig (March 28, 2024). "Battery Ventures taking majority share in AdaCore". PE Hub. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.}
  2. 1 2 Dewar, Robert B. K.; Fisher Jr., Gerald A.; Schonberg, Edmond; Froelich, Robert; Bryant, Stephen F.; Goss, Clinton; Burke, Michael (November 1980). "The NYU Ada translator and interpreter". Proceeding of the ACM-SIGPLAN symposium on Ada programming language - SIGPLAN '80. Vol. 15. pp. 194–201. doi:10.1145/948632.948659. ISBN 0-89791-030-3. S2CID 10586359.
  3. ↑ "AdaCore's Robert Dewar passes away". Military Embedded Systems. July 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2026.
  4. ↑ "The A-Z of Programming Languages" (PDF). A-Z of Programming Languages. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026. ... the technical lead of the Intermetrics MRT team, with Christine Anderson of the Air Force as the manager of the overall Ada 9X project on the government side.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. 1 2 Miranda, Javier; Schonberg, Edmond (June 2004). "The GNAT Project". The GNU Ada Compiler (PDF). Retrieved July 11, 2026.
  6. ↑ Kenner, Richard (1994). "Integrating GNAT and GCC". TRI-Ada '94: Proceedings of the conference on TRI-Ada '94. ACM Press: 84–92. doi:10.1145/197694.197710. ISBN 978-0-89791-666-0.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  7. ↑ "GNAT Pro Insider, Autumn/Winter 2014–2015" (PDF). AdaCore. 2014. p. 1. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
  8. ↑ "Ada Core Technologies launches GNAT programming system IDE". ComputerWorld. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026. Ada Core Technologies announced the GNAT Programming System, which it said makes visual sense of code and streamlines the interaction between developers and their software.
  9. 1 2 Brenta, Ludovic. "Debian Policy for Ada". Retrieved 2026-08-11.
  10. ↑ "AdaCore merges with multicore software specialist SofCheck". Electronics Weekly. January 12, 2012. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  11. ↑ "AdaCore acquires Componolit in move to broaden cybersecurity range". Military Embedded Systems. February 17, 2021. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  12. ↑ Dahad, Nitin (February 3, 2022). "AdaCore and Ferrous Systems partner to develop mission critical Rust". Embedded.com. Retrieved July 11, 2026.
  13. ↑ "Ferrous Systems Donates Ferrocene Language Specification to Rust Project". Rust Foundation. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  14. ↑ "Ferrocene update". Ferrous Systems. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  15. 1 2 "AdaCore". Battery Ventures. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
  16. ↑ "Battery Ventures Invests in AdaCore". PrivSource. 2024-03-28. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
  17. ↑ Novinson, Michael (September 5, 2023). "Battery Ventures Buys GrammaTech's Application Security Unit". BankInfo Security. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  18. ↑ Novinson, Michael (June 20, 2025). "AdaCore Merges With CodeSecure for Unified Developer Tools". BankInfo Security. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  19. ↑ Flaherty, Nick (June 18, 2025). "AdaCore expands with CodeSecure merger". EENews Automotive. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  20. ↑ "Maximum Security Vision: Securing the Future of Safe Autonomous Driving". NVIDIA Blog. 2019-02-05. Archived from the original on 2019-12-26.
  21. ↑ "AdaCore and NVIDIA team on Ada and SPARK programming languages for safety-critical". Military+Aerospace Avionics. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
  22. ↑ "The Official FSF-appointed GDB Maintainers". GDB: The GNU Project Debugger. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026. Joel Brobecker (AdaCore)
  23. ↑ "Alire Financial Contributions". Open Collective. Retrieved Aug 11, 2026.
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