Havok opens new R&D hub in Copenhagen

25 Feb 2011

Respected games industry veteran Thomas Jakobsen will head up Emmy Award-winning Irish technology company Havok’s sixth overseas office, which will be based in Copenhagen where the company will conduct R&D on next-generation products.

Havok’s Copenhagen office will serve as an additional physics research and development hub for the company and will help to ensure Havok’s continued technical leadership in physics.

“The establishment of Havok’s Copenhagen office and the addition to our team of such a respected developer as Thomas Jakobsen further cements Havok’s commitment to remain the physics leader in both development and optimisation on all platforms,” David Coghlan, Havok’s CEO, explained.

“Our Copenhagen office joins a family of now six offices worldwide, and will be a key R&D hub for Havok, as we aggressively grow and evolve the company alongside the exciting and ever-changing games industry.”

Thomas ‘Hitman’ Jakobsen

Jakobsen served as head of research at Danish game developer IO Interactive, where he was a member of the original team behind the Hitman game series and was responsible for creating the initial physics engine and 3D pathfinding algorithms for the series.

While at IO he introduced the use of Verlet integration and related methods for efficient cloth and rigid body simulation to the gaming community.

Previously, Jakobsen was CEO of Q1 Technologies A/S, a Danish company specialising in software and mathematical models for algorithmic trading. Jakobsen also has an esteemed career as an academic, having been assistant professor at the Technical University of Denmark, where he co-invented the so-called interpolation attack on block ciphers. He has authored several well-cited scientific papers on the subject of cryptography, as well as articles on physics simulation.

Havok is actively recruiting additional talent for its Copenhagen office, as well as for positions at other Havok offices, which are located in Dublin, San Francisco, Calcutta, Munich, and Tokyo.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com