Key Highlights:
• Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei,
Intel Corporation and Microsoft team up on the new Compute Express Link (CXL)
technology to accelerate rapidly growing data workloads such as Artificial Intelligence
and Machine Learning, rich media services, High-Performance Computing and Cloud
applications.
• CXL Specification 1.0 ratified to address growing high-performance CPU-to-Device,
interconnect needs and provide improved memory coherency for higher performance
of data-intensive applications.
• The new open standard will help foster an open accelerator ecosystem for high
performance, heterogeneous computing. Interested member companies and
institutions are encouraged to join.
Beaverton, OR, USA – March 11, 2019 – Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei, Intel Corporation and Microsoft today announced the
formation of a new industry standard group dedicated to advancing Compute Express Link
(CXL), a new high-speed CPU-to-Device and CPU-to-Memory interconnect designed to
accelerate next-generation data center performance. The group of companies also ratified
the CXL Specification 1.0, an open industry standard that delivers breakthrough
performance for emerging usage models while supporting an open ecosystem for data
center accelerators and other high-speed enhancements.
CXL Specification 1.0 Available Now
The CXL Specification 1.0 enables a high-speed, efficient interconnect between the CPU and
platform enhancements and workload accelerators, such as GPUs, FPGAs and other
purpose-built accelerator solutions. The technology is built upon the well-established PCI
Express® (PCIe®) infrastructure, leveraging the PCIe 5.0 physical and electrical interface to
provide advanced protocol in three key areas:
1. I/O Protocol
2. Memory Protocol, initially allowing a host to share memory with an accelerator
3. Coherency Interface
CXL technology maintains memory coherency between the CPU memory space and memory
on attached devices, which allows resource sharing for higher performance, reduced
software stack complexity, and lower overall system cost. This permits users to simply focus
on target workloads as opposed to the redundant memory management hardware in their
accelerators. CXL was designed to be an industry open standard interface for high-speed
communications, as accelerators are increasingly used to complement CPUs in support of
emerging applications such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The specification
is available to companies that join the CXL Consortium.
Join CXL Industry Leaders
The founding promoter companies represent a wide-range of industry expertise and include
leading Cloud Service Providers, Communications OEMs and System OEMs. The group is in
the process of incorporation as an open standard body. Furthermore, efforts are now
underway to create innovative usages that leverage CXL technology as well as develop CXL
Specification 2.0 to further the standard’s technical features and capabilities. For
information on how to get involved, contact
admin@computeexpresslink.org.
About Compute Express Link
Compute Express Link (CXL) is a high-speed CPU interconnect technology that accelerates
next generation data center performance. Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei, Intel Corporation and Microsoft are forming an open
industry standard group to develop technical specifications that facilitate breakthrough
performance for emerging usage models while supporting an open ecosystem for data
center accelerators and other high-speed enhancements. For more information on the CXL
Consortium, please visit
www.computeexpresslink.org.
# # #
PCI-SIG, PCI Express, and PCIe are registered trademarks of PCI-SIG. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
CXL Promoter Statements of Support
Alibaba
“Alibaba is glad to support the global development and collaboration of the CXL ecosystem.
As a technology innovator on cloud infrastructure and computing, we hope to drive the
development of CXL together with other industry leading players, delivering more tangible
benefits to our customers and the community at large.”
Qiang Liu, Senior Director, Alibaba Infrastructure Service, Alibaba Group
Dell EMC
“Dell EMC is delighted to be part of the CXL Consortium and its all-star cast of promoter
companies. We are encouraged to see the true openness of CXL, and look forward to more
industry players joining this effort. The synergy between CXL and Gen-Z is clear, and both
will be important components in supporting Dell EMC’s kinetic infrastructure and this data
era.”
Robert Hormuth, Vice President & Fellow, Chief Technology Officer, Server & Infrastructure
Systems, Dell EMC
Facebook
“Facebook is excited to join CXL as a founding member to enable and foster a standardsbased open accelerator ecosystem for efficient and advanced next generation systems.”
Vijay Rao, Director of Technology and Strategy, Facebook
Google
“Google supports the open Compute Express Link collaboration. Our customers will benefit
from the rich ecosystem that CXL will enable for accelerators, memory, and storage
technologies.”
Rob Sprinkle, Technical Lead, Platforms Infrastructure, Google LLC
HPE
“At HPE we believe that being able to compose compute resources over open interfaces is
critical if our industry is to keep pace with the demands of a data and AI-driven future. We
applaud Intel for opening up the interface to the processor. CXL will help customers utilize
accelerators more efficiently and dovetails well with the open Gen-Z memory-semantic
interconnect standard to aid in building fully-composable, workload-optimized systems.”
Mark Potter, HPE CTO and Director of Hewlett Packard Labs
Huawei
“Being a leading provider in the industry, Huawei will play an important role in the
contribution of technology specification. Huawei’s intelligent computing products which
incorporates Huawei’s chip, acceleration components and intelligent management together
with innovative optimized system design, can deliver end-to-end solutions which
significantly improves the rollout and system efficiency of data centers.”
Zhang Xiaohua, GM of Huawei’s Intelligent Computing BU
Intel
“CXL is an important milestone for data-centric computing, and will be a foundational
standard for an open, dynamic accelerator ecosystem. Like USB and PCI Express, which
Intel also co-founded, we can look forward to a new wave of industry innovation and
customer value delivered through the CXL standard.”
Jim Pappas, Director of Technology Initiatives, Intel Corporation
Microsoft
“Microsoft is joining the CXL consortium to drive the development of new industry bus
standards to enable future generations of cloud servers. Microsoft strongly believes in
industry collaboration to drive breakthrough innovation. We look forward to combining
efforts of the consortium with our own accelerated hardware achievements to advance
emerging workloads from deep learning to high performance computing for the benefit of
our customers.”
Dr. Leendert van Doorn, Distinguished Engineer, Azure, Microsoft
Industry Statement of Support
Gen-Z Consortium
“As a Consortium founded to encourage an open ecosystem for the next-generation memory
and compute architectures, Gen-Z welcomes Compute Express Link (CXL) to the industry
and we look forward to opportunities for future collaboration between our organizations.”
Kurtis Bowman, President, Gen-Z Consortium
