Linux Foundation to Host Acumos Project, Making it Easier to Build, Share and Deploy AI Apps

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, introduced the Acumos Project. The new project, still in formation, aims to make artificial intelligence (AI) available to everyone by providing a common framework and platform for the free exchange of machine learning solutions. We expect to launch the project in early 2018.

The founding organizations include AT&T and Tech Mahindra, a company specializing in digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering. Others are invited to participate as members in the coming weeks as the Acumos Project establishes its governance model.

With the Acumos platform, we’re working to create an industry standard for making AI applications and models reusable and easily accessible to any developer. AI tools today can be difficult to use and often are designed for data scientists. The Acumos platform will be user-centric, with an initial focus on creating apps and microservices.

“An open and connected AI platform will promote collaboration as developers and companies look to define the future of AI,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at The Linux Foundation. “Because the platform is open source, it will be accessible to anyone with an interest in AI and machine learning, and customizable to meet specific needs. We expect interest from organizations doing work with autonomous vehicles, drones, content curation and analytics, and much more.”

AT&T and Tech Mahindra are contributing the Acumos Project code to The Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation will host the platform and its AI marketplace moving forward with the goal of nurturing an active, large ecosystem around the project to sustain it over the long term. Code will be available near the time of the project’s launch in early 2018.

“Artificial intelligence is a critical tool for growing our business. However, the current state of today’s AI environment is fractured, which creates a significant barrier to adoption,” said Mazin Gilbert, Vice President of Advanced Technology at AT&T Labs. “Acumos will expedite innovation and deployment of AI applications, and make them available to everyone.”

“Our focus with this project is to apply AI/ML to solve real-world, practical problems at enterprises big and small,” said Raman Abrol, SVP & Business Unit Head of Americas, Comms, Media & Entertainment at Tech Mahindra. “In the past few years we have successfully brought automation to help customers run better, change faster and grow greater. With Acumos, we seek to build on that experience and together with the open source community accelerate AI/ML-related benefits to realize benefits for our customers and partners. In The Linux Foundation, we have an able partner to increase the adoption of Acumos across the community to help enrich the platform. This platform jointly developed with AT&T is a testimony to our continued commitment to the open source community.”