Live from Open Source Summit this week, we’re thrilled to share that the OpenPOWER Foundation is becoming a project hosted at The Linux Foundation. This includes a technical contribution of the POWER Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and Source Design Implementations, including a softcore implementation of the POWER ISA.
The OpenPOWER Foundation recognizes how increased collaboration across the open source ecosystem will advance open hardware technology and accelerate opportunity.
Six years ago, IBM setup the OpenPOWER Foundation to widen the reach of their POWER technology. The goal from the start was to support Instruction Set Architecture and contributed Source Design Implementations required for data-driven HPC workloads like modelling and simulation, cloud services and also Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Today, with 350+ members, OpenPOWER focuses on both hardware and software technologies, providing industry specifications across the open ecosystem, helping members collaborate, as well as providing training and promotion of a POWER architecture. Under The Linux Foundation OpenPOWER’s efforts will increase the breadth and depth of data-driven architectures for developers across the industry and globe and execute on a standard open governance model.
So what exactly will this mean for the developers and engineers working within the stacks? With an open infrastructure from the hardware components to firmware to the operating system and the solutions running on top, developers can now access reviews and improvements to any element in the stack, at any time. Being able to engage globally with developers, engineers and decision makers will fundamentally shape the future of open hardware technologies and help enterprises see faster applications and cheaper cloud services.
This news is a huge deal. What’s so exciting is that it impacts the entire stack and it mirrors The Linux Foundation’s original mission – to bring open hardware, open standards and open code to developers. With this will come so much innovation from the top all the way down the stack and we’re excited to see how this will revolutionize experiences for customers in hybrid cloud architectures and AI environments.
Check out more details on the news from today’s keynote and our official release here: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/2019/08/the-linux-foundation-announces-new-open-hardware-technologies-and-collaboration/