Linux Foundation Announces High-Performance Software Foundation

Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization enabling innovation through open source, announces the launch of the High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF). Through a series of technical projects, HPSF aims to build and advance a portable core software stack for high-performance computing (HPC) by increasing adoption and supporting development efforts.

HPSF will provide a neutral space for pivotal projects in the HPC ecosystem, enabling industry, academia, and government entities to collaborate on the scientific software stack.

HPSF benefits from strong support across the HPC landscape, including Premier Members Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL); General Members AMD, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Intel, Kitware, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), NVIDIA, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); and Associate Members University of Maryland, University of Oregon, and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). HPSF will set up a technical advisory committee (TAC) to manage working groups tackling a variety of HPC topics. Drawing from member organizations and community participants, the TAC will follow a governance model based on the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

The HPSF is launching with the following initial open source technical projects:

• Spack: the HPC package manager.
• Kokkos: a performance-portable programming model for writing modern C++ applications in a hardware-agnostic way.
• Viskores (formerly VTK-m):  a toolkit of scientific visualization algorithms for accelerator architectures.
• HPCToolkit: performance measurement and analysis tools for computers ranging from desktop systems to GPU-accelerated supercomputers.
• Apptainer: Formerly known as Singularity, Apptainer is a Linux Foundation project providing a high performance, full featured HPC and computing optimized container subsystem.
• E4S: a curated, hardened distribution of scientific software packages.

HPSF aims to make life easier for high-performance software developers through a number of focused initiatives, including:

• Continuous integration resources tailored for HPC projects
• Continuously built, turnkey software stacks
• Architecture support
• Performance regression testing and benchmarking
• Collaborations with other LF projects, such as OpenSSF, UEC, UXL Foundation and CNCF

The HPSF welcomes organizations from across the HPC ecosystem to get involved and help drive innovation in open source HPC solutions. To learn more about the HPSF, including how to get involved, contribute and become a member, visit hpsf.io.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.