Intel Announces New oneAPI Toolkits for XPU Software Development 

Dec. 8, 2020 — What’s New: Following a November announcement, Intel today released production of Intel oneAPI toolkits for developing high-performance, cross-architecture applications for Intel CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs, collectively described as XPUs. The version 2021.1 toolkits deliver oneAPI, an open, standards-based, unified cross-architecture programming model that provides developers the freedom to choose the best hardware for accelerated computing. In addition to the toolkit release, Lobachevsky University of Nizhni Novgorod announced a new oneAPI Center of Excellence.

“Extending Intel’s software development tools from CPUs to GPUs and FPGAs is a key milestone in our XPU journey. As we promised, the oneAPI industry initiative delivers on bringing an open, unified cross-architecture programming to the ecosystem — providing an alternative to proprietary programming models. Our oneAPI toolkits, along with the Intel DevCloud, provide the production tools needed to accelerate our advances into distributed intelligence era.” –Raja Koduri, Intel senior vice president, chief architect and general manager of Architecture, Graphics and Software

Why oneAPI Matters: Today’s workloads benefit from specialized hardware architectures. However, these architectures have typically required unique languages and tools, which limits code reuse — narrowing hardware choices and hindering adoption of innovative architectures. oneAPI’s heterogeneous programming model delivers performance without proprietary lock-in while interoperating with code written in familiar languages such as C, C++, Fortran and Python, and standards such as MPI and OpenMP.

Building on its rich heritage of proven developer tools, Intel’s oneAPI Base Toolkit includes compilers, performance libraries, analysis and debug tools, and a compatibility tool that aids in migrating code written in CUDA to Data Parallel C++ (DPC++). Additional toolkits for high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things and rendering provide tools and components to help accelerate specialized workloads.

Intel oneAPI toolkits deliver to Intel’s XPU strategy, supporting Intel CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs. The toolkits are built on Intel’s rich heritage of proven CPU developer tools now expanded to XPUs. (Credit: Intel Corporation)

Intel oneAPI toolkits enable developers to build cross-architecture applications using a single-code base across XPUs that take advantage of unique hardware features and lower software development and maintenance costs. Developers can choose the best architecture for the problem they are trying to solve without needing to rewrite software for the next architecture and platform.

Where to Get the Toolkits: The toolkits are free to download and use locally, or from the Intel DevCloud, where developers can develop and test code and workloads on a variety of Intel CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs, and where select customers are already developing with oneAPI on the Intel Iris Xe-HP development platform. Access options include web download, repositories and containers. The toolkits also offer commercial versions providing worldwide support from Intel technical consulting engineers.

About the New oneAPI Center of Excellence:Lobachevsky University of Nizhni Novgorod (UNN) today announced a new oneAPI Center of Excellence (CoE) to facilitate studies in contemporary physics using the power of CPUs, GPUs and other accelerators with oneAPI cross-architecture programming. The Lobachevsky University oneAPI CoE joins others in place at the Stockholm University, Heidelberg University and the University of Illinois. UNN researchers’ first software to be ported to oneAPI is a high-intensity collisions and interactions open source framework, which is intended for the simulation of high-intensity laser-matter interactions.

About oneAPI Ecosystem Support: Since 2019, oneAPI ecosystem support has steadily grown. More than 60 leading research organizations, companies and universities support the oneAPI initiative and some note their success using Intel oneAPI toolkits. See oneAPI ecosystem support and reviews site for details. A new oneAPI applications catalog details more than 230 applications powered by oneAPI.

About Developer Resources: The following resources are available to help developers build high-performance, cross-architecture applications using oneAPI and the Intel oneAPI Toolkits:

• • Key Links: Documentation, oneAPI programming guide, and code samples and free training.
  • Support: For technical support using the Intel oneAPI toolkits, developers can access the free community forums. Priority Support with direct, private interactions with Intel engineers is included in toolkit commercial packages.
  • Training: Free training is available via webinars, deep dive workshops, full learning paths, and more. For customers needing assistance accelerating HPC and AI solutions using oneAPI, a group of specially trained companies offer consulting through a new Intel oneAPI Technology Partner.

Source: Intel