Linux Foundation Announces NextArch Foundation to Build Next-Generation Architecture that Supports Diverse Computing Environments

Linux Foundation Membership Summit The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the NextArch Foundation. The new Foundation is a neutral home for open source developers and contributors to build next-generation architecture that can support compatibility between an increasing array of microservices.

Cloud-native computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Edge computing and much more have led businesses down a path of massive opportunity and transformation. According to market research, the global digital transformation market size was valued at USD 336.14 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6 percent from 2021 to 2028. But a lack of intelligent, centralized architecture is preventing enterprises and the developers who are creating innovation based on these technologies to fully realize their potential.

“Developers today have to make what feel like impossible decisions among different technical infrastructures and the proper tool for a variety of problems,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. “Every tool brings learning costs and complexities that developers don’t have the time to navigate yet there’s the expectation that they keep up with accelerated development and innovation. NextArch Foundation will improve ease of use and reduce the cost for developers to drive the evolution of next-generation technology architectures.”

Next-generation architecture describes a variety of innovations in architecture, from data storage and heterogeneous hardware to engineering productivity, telecommunications and much more. Until now, there has been no ecosystem to address this massive challenge. NextArch will leverage infrastructure abstraction solutions through architecture and design and automate development, operations and project processes to increase the autonomy of development teams. Enterprises will gain easy to use and cost-effective tools to solve the problems of productization and commercialization in their digital transformation journey.

“NextArch Foundation understands that solving the biggest technology challenges of our time requires building an open source ecosystem and fostering collaboration,” said Mike Dolan, senior vice president and general manager of projects at Linux Foundation. “This is an important effort with a big mission and it can only be done in the open source community. We are happy to support this community and help build open governance practices that benefit developers throughout its ecosystem.”

“I am really excited to be involved with the NextArch Foundation in an advisory role. In the past five years, we’ve witnessed major advances in various technology domains such as cloud, artificial intelligence, IoT, AR/VR, quantum computing, serverless computing, and many more. These advances have produced enormous amounts of open source software assets. A core challenge is bridging all these technologies and software assets under a single next generation architecture that supports diverse computing environments and enables enterprise digital transformation. NextArch Foundation will be at the heart of this effort, building a community and enabling an ecosystem that brings together organizations and communities to address this challenge in an open environment,” said Dr. Ibrahim Haddad, Executive Director of LF AI & Data.