As accelerators have become more prevalent in the industry there has been a bifurcation in the industry which typically resolves itself. Initially there has been many efforts by a myriad of vendors in the GPU accelerator space with various degrees of openness.
For a long period of time, incubation of the oneAPI ecosystem started at Intel through both DPC++ SYCL compiler, and the publishing of open specifications of oneAPI and their open source implementations. While the messaging around the specs were that they were open to all contributors – it could be hard to feel comfortable especially for competitors to enter spaces where the perception is that it isn’t a true neutral space.
With oneAPI spec’s now under the aegis of the Linux Foundation the spec and the open source implementations will be well managed under established norms. There is now a true center of gravity to work together as equal partners on the oneAPI spec and their open source implementations.
We can now focus on driving a true industry driven standard on heterogeneous computing under the UXL Foundation and have some serious collaboration to finally use all your hardware. This will herald a sustainable ecosystem that we can all be proud of.
There are still challenges going forward. How our toolchains work together under UXL Foundation is going to be important going forward. We can address these concerns by vigorously participating in the UXL Foundation. Creating an open ecosystem is always challenging as many many partners need to agree and align on goals and processes. Listening to each other and the community is going to be key going forward.
With all that being said - I hope that you will take the time to look at what has been established so far. We have a humble beginning but with your help and participation we can take it to the next level. For further reading, please see https://uxlfoundation.org/. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
Cover image: Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash
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