IBM today took the wraps off a new release of PowerAI, the prepackaged bundle of deep learning frameworks that debuted last fall. With the addition of Google's TensorFlow framework, the company says its AI business model is starting to resemble the Linux distributor Red Hat. "In a sense, PowerAI makes IBM the Red Hat of deep learning," Sumit Gupta, the vice president of IBM's High Performance Computing & Data Analytics business, told Datanami. In the same way, instead of going to TensorFlow or Caffe or other websites [for deep learning frameworks], they want an enterprise-level distribution." The first release of PowerAI included "optimized" versions of Caffe-bvlc, Caffe-ibm, Caffe-nv, DIGITS, Torch, and Theano. With this release, the software includes TensorFlow 0.12, as well as Chainer, a deep learning framework that's very popular in Japan. Gupta says PowerAI--which is free and distributed as a binary for Ubuntu Linux (sorry, Red Hat)--is resonating with IBM clients, particularly those who have bought the "Minsky" Power8 servers to run deep learning and machine learning workloads on. "Enterprise customers prefer not to go to an open source website and download software and build it.

Deep learning continues to gather steam in corporate computing, and IBM and Nvidia are teaming up to help accelerate the foundation behind artificial intelligence breakthroughs. The two companies are collaborating on a deep learning solution that melds technology from both companies in a bid to speed up the process of training computers to think and learn more like humans do. A new software toolkit available today called IBM PowerAI is designed to run on the recently announced IBM server built for artificial intelligence that features Nvidia NVLink technology optimized for IBM's Power Architecture. The hardware-software solution provides more than two times the performance of comparable servers with four graphics processing units (GPUs) running AlexNet with Caffe. The same four-GPU Power-based configuration running AlexNet with BVLC Caffe can also outperform 8-M40 GPU-based x86 configurations, making it the world's fastest commercially available enterprise systems platform on two versions of a key deep learning framework, the companies said.

IBM on Thursday rolled out its latest Power8 processor, which is designed to move data faster, and new servers with OpenPower features. For IBM, the OpenPower Foundation community is critical for its Power8 processor. A bevy of companies are in OpenPower, a group that aims to be a counterweight to x86-based servers. There's a run on OpenStack related companies. IBM acquired Blue Box, which offers private clouds as a service via OpenStack.