Linux Foundation looks to open source growth for AI

The Linux Foundation has announced the launch of LF Deep Learning Foundation, an umbrella organization which will support open source projects in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning.

Amdocs, AT&T, B.Yond, Baidu, Huawei, Nokia, Tech Mahindra, Tencent, Univa, and ZTE will form the foundations of the group, which was announced at the Open Networking Summit in Los Angeles. As with all projects at the Linux Foundation the aim here is to harmonise developments across the industry to make the technology more accessible to developers and data scientists.

“We are excited to offer a deep learning foundation that can drive long-term strategy and support for a host of projects in the AI, machine learning, and deep learning ecosystems,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of The Linux Foundation.

“With LF Deep Learning, we are launching the Acumos AI Project, a comprehensive platform for AI model discovery, development and sharing. In addition, we are pleased to announce that Baidu and Tencent each intend to contribute projects to LF Deep Learning. LF Deep Learning enables the open source community to support entire ecosystems of projects in these spaces, and we invite the open source community to join us in this effort.”

The Acumos AI Project is one of these initiatives to improve the accessibility of AI by attempting to standardise the infrastructure stack and components required to run an out-of-the-box general AI environment. The project will package tool kits such as TensorFlow and SciKit Learn and models with a common API that allows them to seamlessly connect, allowing for simpler onboarding and training of models and tools.

“Acumos will benefit developers and data scientists across numerous industries and fields, from network and video analytics to content curation, threat prediction, and more,” said Zemlin.

Elsewhere at the Open Networking Summit, AT&T announced plans to install 60,000 white box hardware in cell towers over the next several years to power the 5G revolution. The white boxes will run on AT&T’s ‘Disaggregated Network Operating System’ which was build using the acquired expertise from Vyatta, and powered by ONAP. The team hope to see the system adopted as open source software across the industry.

Finally, Pensa, a provider of automation software, has announced the open integration of the Pensa Maestro NFV platform with the ONAP project. The integration will allow interoperability with ONAP using Pensa Maestro NFV, which it claims is the first full stack automation platform for intelligent planning, design, validation, and delivery of carrier-grade Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) services.