OpenPOWER Foundation Revolutionizes the Data Center at Summit 2016!

By John Zannos, Chairman, OpenPOWER Foundation

As we reach the pinnacle of our second OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose, I want to take a minute to recognize all of our members who have contributed to the momentum and growth we’ve seen since we gathered here last year for our inaugural event.

I also want to thank the members of the OpenPOWER Foundation Board for electing me as the new Chairman and electing Calista Redmond of IBM as President. Calista and I follow the success of the Foundation’s former Chair and founding OpenPOWER member, Gordon MacKean of Google, and former President and founding OpenPOWER member, Brad McCredie of IBM. My thanks to Gordon and Brad.

I’m happy to say that our membership has grown and surpassed the two hundred mark. It’s not just our membership that’s expanding, though – it’s the entire OpenPOWER ecosystem. We’re seeing more hardware and software innovations being developed and launched into the market, OpenPOWER work groups are building the guidelines that drive innovation, and there’s a growing number of developers working on OpenPOWER.

It’s clear to see that companies around the world are interested in collaborating to create innovative products and solutions that meet the needs of the modern data center. The market continues to ask for technology choice and openness. OpenPOWER is supplying collaborative innovation by pulling together a community that is working and innovating together.

Today at Summit, our members announced more than 50 new OpenPOWER-based innovations, many of which were developed in collaboration with fellow Foundation members. The new innovations showcase the Foundation’s commitment to CAPI accelerator technology and building new solutions for high performance computing and cloud deployments. These are real examples of the deep innovation that results from open collaboration. The full list of member solutions is impressive, as you can see by checking out our OpenPOWER fact sheet.

We’re not just focused on developing new solutions. We also remain committed to our OpenPOWER developer ecosystem. Today, we introduced the OpenPOWER Ready™ seal, enabling companies to validate their hardware and software solutions against self-test guidelines from the Foundation. We hope that OpenPOWER Ready will help grow our ecosystem, providing added confidence for developers, builders and customers.

We also announced the first-ever OpenPOWER Developer Challenge to encourage developers to tap the power of open and show us what they can create.

There are several exciting things planned at OpenPOWER Summit over the next few days. You can find the full schedule of OpenPOWER Summit events on our website. If you’re onsite, we invite you to stop by the OpenPOWER Pavilion. And don’t forget about the renowned OpenPOWER Ice Bar tonight from 5-7 p.m. PT – it’s a fan favorite.

Thank you, and please stop by and tell us what you are thinking.