Google, Mellanox, Nvidia and Tyan join IBM to form the OpenPOWER Consortium-- an open development alliance with plans to boost the popularity of POWER architecture by licensing Big Blue server hardware and firmware.
The alliance makes POWER hardware and software open source and allows other vendors to license POWER IP. In other words, IBM wants more datacentre customers to develop own POWER-based hardware, allowing it to take over a bigger slice of the datacentre market.
"Developers now have access to an expanded and open set of server technologies for the first time," IBM says. "This type of "collaborative development" model will change the way data center hardware is designed and deployed.”
The first OpenPOWER Consortium development is the integration of the Nvidia CUDA GPU and POWER ecosystems. Other alliance members will probably do the same with own technologies, but there is no means of confirming whether Google will start making POWER-based systems.
Other companies can also join the effort, since it is " open to any firm that wants to innovate on the POWER platform and participate in an open, collaborative effort."
Go Google, IBM, Mellanox, Nvidia, Tyan Announce Development Group for Data Centres
