In the era of big AI models, how do OS, cloud and chips resonate with each other?

You and I both know that the x86 architecture has been enduring for a long time because the operating system (OS) and x86 chips resonate with each other and complement each other. In the LLM era, if you want to bring out the true power of AI, you need the OS, cloud and chips to work together.

On August 30, at the 2024 OpenAnolis Conference, the OpenAnolis community stated that the installation volume of its Anolis OS and derivative versions has exceeded 8 million sets, and at the same time launched the official version of the safer, more stable and more AI-based OpenAnolis OS 23.

(At the ceremony for the three major plans of the Longxi Community, the guests in the picture are: Ma Tao, Chairman of the Longxi Community, Xu Lifeng, Chief Engineer of Operating System Product Planning of ZTE, Zhang Dong, Chief Scientist of Inspur Cloud, Wang Liwen, Director of AMD Greater China, Hu Kun, Vice President of Zhongke Fangde, Yang Jiguo, Senior Technical Director of Intel, Zhu Jianzhong, Deputy General Manager of Tongxin Software, and Gao Xiang, Vice President of Loongson Zhongke)

Not only that, Alibaba Cloud and AMD also attended this conference. In the AI ​​era, how will these three companies change the world?

When CentOS stops

Chinese servers are facing a big test.

Since June 30 this year, CentOS, the most mainstream open source server operating system in China, no longer provides all official support and updates. This also means that domestic manufacturers need to find an alternative operating system as soon as possible, and it is best to be a domestically independent and truly open source operating system.

Of course, simply migrating to a domestic open source server OS is not a long-term solution. Nowadays, AI big models are surging, and servers are gradually building diversified computing power, including GPU, CPU, DPU, ASIC and other hardware architectures and devices, while domestic OS currently has weak support in this regard. It can be said that only an OS that continues to evolve is what the market needs.

As the leading open source server OS in China, Anolis OS is constantly evolving, with the focus this time being on AI.

At the meeting, the Anolis OS 23 official version was announced by the Dragon Lizard Community. It is more secure, more stable, and more AI-based. It uses the most common Linux ANCK 6.6 kernel, is fully compatible with mainstream CPU architectures at home and abroad, and is compatible with newer and richer AI container service ecosystems. It is the first time that it natively supports AI computing power calls and applications at the operating system level.

Anolis OS 23 introduces the Dragon Lizard Ecosystem Software Warehouse (EPAO) to achieve one-click installation and deployment of the AI ​​development environment, solving the cumbersome dependencies between AI components and accelerating the development and deployment process of AI applications.

As CentOS bids farewell to history, continuing the domestic mission and pioneering AI, the Longxi Community, based on the innovative concept of "cloud + AI", officially launched the "CentOS Replacement Plan", "Anolis OS 23 Ecological Derivative Plan" and "AI Application Promotion Plan", and is committed to promoting the virtuous cycle of domestic operating system development from open source to commercialization.

Alibaba Cloud helps the dragon lizard gain wings

Alibaba Cloud is both a beneficiary and an active contributor to open source.

In the early days of its business, Alibaba Cloud made extensive use of open source software and accumulated more technical R&D capabilities by studying and researching excellent open source practices abroad. Once it had a certain level of capabilities, Alibaba Cloud actively fed back its practices to the community in the form of open source software, and promoted the technologies accumulated within Alibaba Cloud through open source to become industry standards. As Alibaba Cloud became more and more deeply rooted in the industry, it formed a "1+4" open source strategy, namely operating system, cloud native, database, and big data.

The operating system is one of the "1+4" open source strategies. The Longlizard Community, jointly initiated by Alibaba Cloud and industry partners, has grown into a leading operating system open source community in China. Looking back, Alibaba Cloud has left a deep mark on the innovation process of the Longlizard Community. Through the close cooperation between Alibaba Cloud and the Longlizard Community, the two parties have jointly created a sustainable and innovative open source ecosystem.

First of all, Longxi plays a pivotal role in the integration of cloud and AI. After all, all applications must flourish on OS, and Longxi continues to improve its functions and performance. Based on the open source version, many commercial versions have been born to meet the various needs of users and enterprises.

Secondly, Alibaba Cloud is the leading domestic cloud computing vendor and has profound experience in cloud computing and AI. Any application cannot be separated from the support of powerful computing power and algorithms. Alibaba Cloud provides Longxi with a powerful foundation, allowing applications to freely and fully exert their creativity and enter thousands of industries.

Jiang Jiangwei, partner of Alibaba Group and general manager of Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure Division, also said at the meeting that thanks to the active participation and contribution of many general-purpose and heterogeneous chip manufacturers, especially domestic independent chip manufacturers, in the Longxi community, Alibaba Cloud can better develop the "one cloud, multiple cores" strategy, while obtaining more robust hardware supply chain guarantees, achieving unified resource management and scheduling, and thus providing more efficient computing infrastructure services to the majority of users.

He emphasized that Alibaba Cloud insists on long-term investment in the construction of the Longlizard community, and through the open source of self-developed technologies and the construction of ecological communities, it will work with partners to make Longlizard a best practice for industry collaboration.

Dragon lizard and AMD encounter

High-quality platforms often come from strong alliances. AMD and Alibaba Cloud are long-term partners. AMD helps enterprises achieve digital transformation through advanced process technology, breakthrough performance and strong computing power, while Alibaba Cloud is the foundation of software, AI and cloud ecology.

With the cooperation between the two parties, all ecological products have strong performance. For example, Alibaba Cloud Yaochi's cloud native data warehouse AnalyticDB for PostgreSQL is deeply optimized with AMD's new generation hardware, combined with a fully self-developed computing engine and row-column hybrid storage to achieve performance upgrades, with an overall performance improvement of 30%.

In addition to Alibaba Cloud, AMD also cooperates with many domestic cloud service providers. In other words, the powerful combination of Anolis OS and AMD is also the key to accelerating AI applications.

To address this issue, Anolis OS 23 focuses on AMD CPU instances and introduces AI-specific optimization solutions to better help developers unleash the full performance of the hardware, reducing costs and increasing efficiency for developers.

In order to reduce the cost of environment deployment for AI developers, the Longxi community launched an AI inference container image optimized for AMD CPU. The image directly integrates ZenDNN CPU computing acceleration and tcmalloc memory acceleration, which is ready to use and reduces the cost of AI inference environment deployment to zero.

Reshaping the core competitiveness of OS

Against the backdrop of the deep integration of cloud and AI, and the further integration of hardware and AI, the Longxi community is moving from “usable” to “easy to use”.

In order to continuously promote "cloud + AI" innovation, the Longxi community proposed the development route of "AI native operating system", advocating active exploration of three major directions including AI container images, intelligent operation and maintenance AIOps, and OS Copilot document construction.

At the conference, Alibaba Cloud stated that it will continue to promote breakthroughs in the two directions of "Sys for AI" (operating system supports artificial intelligence) and "AI for Sys" (artificial intelligence changes the operating system) of the Longxi operating system, and reshape the core competitiveness of OS in the AI ​​era.

As a hardware solution provider, AMD can not only provide powerful EPYC CPU processors, but also further provide accelerators such as GPU, DPU, FPGA, etc. to realize "AI on AMD".

To this day, the open source ecological team of the Longxi community is still growing. In short, the Longxi community has effectively promoted the improvement and development of my country's cloud computing industry chain and injected new vitality into the prosperity of my country's digital industry ecology.