AMD, Dell EMC, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Mellanox Technologies, Micron, NVIDIA and Xilinx today announced the Open Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (OpenCAPI), a standard that can increase datacenter server performance by up to 10x. Servers and related products based on the new standard are expected in the second half of 2017.

Released today by the newly formed OpenCAPI Consortium, the new standard provides an open, high-speed pathway for different types of technology - advanced memory, accelerators, networking and storage - to more tightly integrate their functions within servers. This data-centric approach to server design, which puts the compute power closer to the data, removes inefficiencies in traditional system architectures to help eliminate system bottlenecks and can significantly improve server performance.

OpenCAPI is an Open Interface Architecture that allows any microprocessor to attach to coherent user-level accelerators and I/O devices; advanced memories accessible via read/write or user-level DMA semantics; and is an agnostic to processor architecture.

OpenCAPI provides a high bandwidth, low latency open interface design specification built to minimize the complexity of high-performance accelerator design. Capable of 25Gbits per second data rate, OpenCAPI outperforms the current PCIe specification which offers a maximum data transfer rate of 16Gbits per second.

IBM plans to introduce POWER9-based servers that leverage the OpenCAPI specification in the second half of 2017. Additionally, IBM will enable members of OpenPOWER Foundation to introduce OpenCAPI enabled products in the second half 2017.

Google and Rackspace’s new server under development, codenamed Zaius and announced at the OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose, will leverage POWER9 processor technology and plans to provide the OpenCAPI interface in its design.

Mellanox plans to enable the new specification capabilities in its future products, while Xilinx plans to support OpenCAPI enabled FPGAs.

The OpenCAPI consortium plans to make the OpenCAPI specification fully available to the public at no charge before the end of the year.

This week OpenCAPI is the third technology organization, joining the CCIX and Gen-Z consortiums, to make an announcement in support of new open standards to respond to the emerging needs of the datacenter.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is known to protect its server technologies and has chosen to sit out of the new consortium.