Establishing an open acceleration infrastructure, software, and middleware development team to address data center workloads.

Xilinx announced a multi-year strategic partnership with IBM to develop energy-efficient, high-performance data center applications leveraging Xilinx FPGA workload acceleration technology on IBM POWER-based systems.

Xilinx and IBM have partnered and collaborated with the OpenPOWER Foundation, forming a team to develop open accelerated infrastructure, software, and middleware to address emerging applications such as machine learning, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), genomics, high-performance computing (HPC), and big data analytics.

As cross-platform workloads become more frequent, data centers are shifting from low-power to application accelerators that meet demanding data throughput and latency requirements. Xilinx All Programmable FPGAs offer exceptional power efficiency, enabling efficient use of accelerators in data centers. IBM's open, licensed POWER architecture, coupled with Xilinx FPGAs, can handle workloads with remarkable performance, performance-per-watt, and low total cost of ownership for next-generation data centers.

As part of a strategic collaboration between IBM and Xilinx, IBM Systems Group developers can develop POWER-based server, storage, and middleware system solution stacks leveraging Xilinx FPGA accelerators for data center architectures such as OpenStack, Docker, and Spark.

IBM can also develop and certify Xilinx accelerator boards for IBM Power Systems servers. Xilinx is developing a POWER-based version of its software-defined SDAccel development environment and libraries, which will be distributed to the OpenPOWER developer community.

Additionally, IBM and Xilinx are leveraging IBM's innovative Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) to enable customers to achieve faster computational performance. Built on the POWER architecture, CAPI enables Xilinx and the entire technology industry to build tightly integrated, consistent solutions built on the POWER architecture.

For example, when an independent software vendor uses IBM flash storage already equipped with CAPI for analytics processing, it creates a large memory space, allowing it to handle the same amount of query work with only 1/24 the server capacity of a general-purpose x86 solution. This full stack innovation within the OpenPOWER ecosystem delivers enhanced performance and enables POWER8-based systems to continue Moore's Law.

“The IBM and Xilinx collaboration will enable customers to achieve a new level of accelerated compute, enabled by the sophisticated integration of IBM POWER processors and Xilinx FPGAs. They will also benefit directly from the innovations of the rapidly expanding OpenPOWER ecosystem,” said Ken King, general manager, IBM OpenPOWER.

“Xilinx is collaborating with IBM, its data center customers, and the industry ecosystem to deliver world-class next-generation cloud computing and NFV application solutions,” said Hemant Dhulla, vice president of the Wired Communications and Data Center Business Unit at Xilinx. “IBM’s vast data center and cloud software resources and expertise will be a significant addition to the ongoing shift to FPGA-based accelerators.”

Opening access to data center infrastructure is key to enabling workload acceleration across industries. Xilinx is investing heavily in the OpenPOWER Foundation, an independent organization with over 160 members worldwide supporting the open development of the POWER architecture. Xilinx, an active participant in the OpenPOWER Foundation's Accelerator Working Group, announced today that it has been upgraded to Platinum membership and approved by the Foundation's Board of Directors.