IBM, Google, others challenge Intel with data center performance standard
Three years after open-sourcing the specifications for its POWER chip architecture, IBM Corp. is releasing another homegrown server innovation that could make an even bigger impact on the data center market.
OpenCAPI, or Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface by its original name, will become available through a dedicated foundation that was inaugurated today. It appears aimed at countering Intel Corp.’s dominance in data center computers.
The OpenCAPI Consortium has the same basic goal as the similarly structured Gen Z Consortium that launched earlier this week: Speeding up communications among server components. But while the latter group focuses on the so-called persistent memory technology that will start hitting the market in the coming quarters, IBM’s initiative has a much broader mission statement. The company wants to improve the various accelerators that organizations are plugging into their servers to speed up computationally intensive workloads.
Products in this category range from relatively simple direct-attached flash modules to specialized chips optimized for tasks like machine learning. Practically all of them provide server connectivity via the PCI Express 3.0 interconnect, which offers a maximum transfer rate of 16 gigabits per second.
IBM’s CAPI technology, meanwhile, is capable of handling up to 25 gigabytes per second. The company says that the higher throughput of the interface makes it possible to feed data into accelerators faster and can thus significantly improve their effective performance.
By making the specifications available through the OpenCAPI Consortium, IBM will enable third-party vendors to incorporate technology into their offerings. It’s courting two groups in particular: server makers developing systems based on its upcoming POWER9 CPUs and chip manufacturers that may want to bake CAPI into their own chips. The company’s goal is to level the playing field against the Intel Corp.-powered x86 machines that dominate enterprise data centers today.
OpenCAPI has already drawn the support of eight prominent company’s, including Google Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Nvidia Corp., Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., most of which are also members of the Gen-Z Consortium. Both groups expect to finalize their respective interconnect specifications by the end of the year, while the first OpenCAPI-equipped servers are set to become generally available a few quarters later.
Image via Pixabay
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
