ARMONK, N.Y. and JIANGSU, China, Jan. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM [NYSE: IBM], the Suzhou PowerCore Technology Company and the Research Institute of Jiangsu Industrial Technology today announced the two Chinese organizations will join the OpenPOWER Foundation, with Suzhou PowerCore intending to use IBM's POWER architecture to provide customized chip design solutions to push server innovation in such areas as Big Data, cloud computing and next generation data centers.

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The OpenPOWER Foundation is an open development alliance based on IBM's POWER microprocessor architecture. The foundation intends to enable advance server, networking, storage and acceleration technology aimed at delivering more choice, control and flexibility to developers of next generation and cloud data centers. The foundation makes POWER hardware and software available to open development for the first time as well as making POWER intellectual property licensable to other manufacturers, greatly expanding the ecosystem of innovators on the platform.

Suzhou PowerCore plans to license IBM's POWER architecture, intellectual property related to POWER8 and chip design tools to develop and market processors for servers in China. The Research Institute of Jiangsu Industrial Technology will promote and help build an ecosystem for POWER development in Jiangsu Province and throughout China.

"The proposed collaboration between Suzhou PowerCore, the Research Institute of Jiangsu Industrial Technology and IBM will benefit those innovative businesses in China that are aggressively taking advantage of Big Data and cloud computing to capture growth in such industries as banking, communications, retail and transportation," said Bradley McCredie, Vice President and IBM Fellow, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "IBM is committed to enabling an increasing choice of POWER-based processor solutions for Chinese information technology users along with new server innovations for the POWER platform."

Suzhou PowerCore recently was created as part of an information technology ecosystem development initiative by Jiangsu Province and is located in the Suzhou National New & Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone. Suzhou PowerCore already is working closely with leading Chinese chip design teams.

"We are excited about the potential opportunity to work with IBM and the OpenPOWER Foundation to bring new forms of innovation to China," said Jiang Zheng, CEO of Suzhou PowerCore Company. "This new model of global collaboration among foundation participants promises to bring much more choice and value to information technology users throughout China. We believe that Chinese opportunities for the POWER platform will serve as an engine of growth for Suzhou PowerCore, IBM, Jiangsu Province and the OpenPOWER Foundation."

In May 2013, IBM opened its first Linux development center for POWER server technology in Beijing. Since then, more than 550 new applications have been created for the POWER architecture with the center's help. POWER-based servers run some of the world's most popular Web-commerce sites and can be found at work in major enterprises around the world. 

The OpenPOWER Foundation was announced in August 2013 by founding members IBM, Google, Nvidia, Mellanox and Tyan to create a new, collaborative ecosystem of developers around IBM's POWER technology.

Contacts:

Xiao Yi Shen
IBM China
shenxyi@cn.ibm.com
86-10-6361-3053

Jeffrey Cross
IBM
jrcross@us.ibm.com
914-766-4166
203-216-1531

Todd Huang
Suzhou PowerCore Technology Company
tao.huang@china-core.com
86-180-1352-5508

SOURCE IBM