SAN DIEGO – The Linux Foundation is adopting the IBM-developed OpenPOWER Foundation in a move to further drive cross-vendor software support to boost hardware performance for data centers and hybrid cloud environments.

The adoption will see the project house IBM’s open POWER microprocessor Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and contributed Source Design Implementations to support data-driven hardware. Steve Fields, an IBM fellow and chief engineer of IBM Power Systems, told SDxCentral that those components are targeted at intensive workloads like artificial intelligence (AI) and those hybrid cloud environments.

Those components are also part of IBM’s Power Series chip architecture, which is not being donated to the Linux Foundation.

Fields explained that processors need to evolve to better support these computing needs, but that work can’t just be focused on processors. “They need better IO subsystems and we have to have the openness to have the industry collaborate because it’s too expensive to do this work on your own,” he said.

Fields noted that software optimization can improve hardware performance by up to 10x depending on the specific application. “We can see that from a well-built accelerator built for a particular application,” he said.

IBM is also donating the Open Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (OpenCAPI) and the Open Memory Interface (OMI). Fields said the OpenCAPI move will including both the host and device-side layer “so that others can pick that up and use it to build chips.”

OpenCAPI is a bus standard backed by IBM, Dell EMC, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Mellanox, Xilinx, and others. It provides an open, high-speed pathway for different types of technology – advanced memory, accelerators, networking, and storage – to more tightly integrate their functions within servers.

OpenCAPI supports both ARM and x86 architectures. “On the device side it makes it feasible to build an accelerator that is high performant, low latency, and can attach to any CPU host that uses OpenCAPI,” Fields explained.

OpenCAPI can also allow those vendors that are notably lacking from the OpenPOWER roll call, like Intel, to participate.

“They have their own that competes with OpenPower,” Fields explained. “While we can work together on IO subsystems (though something like OpenCAPI) the processor itself is not what Intel is going to participate on. But the OpenCAPI allows that wider adoption.”

The OpenPower Foundation was started in 2013. It initially served as an open development alliance that allowed the IBM POWER microprocessor architecture to be available under a license model. It has since accumulated 350 members spread across vendors, academia, and individuals.

Hugh Blemings, executive director of the OpenPOWER Foundation, said there were dozens of systems shipping today and in development based on the platform. He added that migrating the foundation will provide the group with an independent governance model that will allow for grater collaboration. “This is really a way to spread the cost of development across the ecosystem and also drive more innovation,” Blemings said.

Fields explained that IBM had been “dabbling” with allowing licensing of the architecture to other vendors so they could build their own processors. But this move takes that a step further by allowing all group members to license the reference architecture royalty free.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, noted that by bringing the foundation into the Linux Foundation it provides for “top-to-bottom openness" across the stack. “Having both the software efforts like CNCF and Linux alongside this enables us to connect those dots,” Zemlin explained. “This opens visibility for software developers to optimize that hardware using software.”

Zemlin cited the Linux Foundation’s work in growing efforts around the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP), Hyperledger, and Kubernetes through the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. “We hope to grow this equally,” he added.

Fields said the move also continues IBM’s push into the open source world. “That is really part of everything we are doing at IBM now,” he said, pointing to IBM’s recent acquisition of Red Hat as an example.