Last month, the LF AI & Data Foundation (lfaidata.foundation) under the auspices of the Linux Foundation (San Fransciso, Calif.; linuxfoudation.org) launched the Open Platform for Enterprise Artificial Intelligence (OPEA; opea.dev) as its latest Sandbox Project. The initiative is aimed at championing the development of open, multi-provider, robust and composable generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems.
It Involves a host of industry leaders, such as Anyscale, Cloudera, Datastax, Domino Data Lab, Hugging Face, Intel, KX, MariaDB Foundation, Minio, Qdrant, Red Hat, SAS, VMware (acquired by Broadcom), Yellowbrick Data, Zilliz and others.
The mission of LF AI & Data is to build and support an open artificial intelligence (AI) and data community and drive open-source innovation in the AI and data domains by enabling collaboration and the creation of new opportunities for all members of the community, according to the organization. OPEA aims to facilitate and enable the development of flexible, scalable GenAI systems that harness the best open source innovation from across the ecosystem.
“We’re thrilled to welcome OPEA to LF AI & Data with the promise to offer open-source, standardized, modular and heterogenous Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines for enterprises with a focus on open model development, hardened and optimized support of various compilers and toolchains. On this foundation, enterprises can accelerate containerized AI integration and delivery, as well as new unique vertical use cases. OPEA will unlock new possibilities in AI by creating a detailed, composable framework that stands at the forefront of technology stacks. This initiative is a testament to our mission to drive open source innovation and collaboration within the AI and data communities under a neutral and open governance model,” explains Ibrahim Haddad, Executive Director at LF AI & Data.
OPEA is emerging at a crucial juncture when GenAI projects, particularly those utilizing RAG, are becoming increasingly popular for their capacity to unlock significant value from existing data repositories. The swift advancement in GenAI technology, however, has led to a fragmentation of tools, techniques, and solutions. OPEA intends to address this issue by collaborating with the industry to standardize components, including frameworks, architecture blueprints and reference solutions that showcase performance, interoperability, trustworthiness and enterprise-grade readiness.
“Intel is at the forefront of incubating open source development to build trusted, scalable open infrastructure that enables heterogeneity and provides a platform for developer innovation. Generative AI is at this moment; OPEA, with the support of the broader community, will address critical pain points of RAG adoption and scale today. It will also define a platform for the next phases of developer innovation that harnesses the potential value generative AI can bring to enterprises and all our lives,” says Melissa Evers, Vice President of Software Engineering Group and General Manager of Strategy to Execution, Intel.
The LF AI & Data Foundation invites other organizations and individuals passionate about advancing open source AI and data to join the OPEA project and contribute to shaping the future of enterprise AI.
Connected Plant Conference on AI and open-source software
The concepts of open-source software development and artificial intelligence will be on the agenda the upcoming Connected Plant Conference (CPC; www.connectedplantconference.com), which will be held May 20-22 near Houston, Texas. Focused specifically on digitalization challenges and opportunities for the chemical process industries (CPI) and the power-generation industries, the event will feature several sessions touching on open-source software and AI.
On Wednesday, May 22, CPC will hold a session entitled “Decoding the Tech Maze: Selecting the Right AI and Machine Learning Technology Offerings for your success,” featuring speakers from Evonik Digital, c3.AI, facilis.ai and Wipfli. Later in the day, the session “Breaking Barriers: Exploring Open Source, Open Standards and Future of Collaboration” will showcase Michael Clark from the OPC Foundation and David DeBari, from ExxonMobil Corp.