The organizations for artificial intelligence and big data set up under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation go into the new LF AI & Data Foundation up.
With the LF AI & Data Foundation there is a new organization under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. It is the result of the merger of the LF AI Foundation, which was previously independent but also managed as a sub-organization of the Linux Foundation, and the Open Data Platform initiative (ODPi).
The motivation for the consolidation is the proximity between machine learning and techniques and data management. In most cases, the former require large amounts of data for training neural networks, among other things. Conversely, data scientists are increasingly using ML methods to analyze the data.
Working together between data and ML
The Foundation’s official announcement therefore states “AI and data are inextricably linked and interdependent”. Bringing the projects together under a common umbrella enables closer collaboration, integration and interoperability between projects. In addition, the organization wants to provide unified guidelines for end users regarding tools, standards and the future of AI, data processing and analytics.
The LF AI & Data Foundation will jointly continue the 25 projects of the two original organizations at the time of the merger. Among other things, the standard format for exchanging neural networks ONNX (Open Neural Network eXchnage), the Ludwig toolset and the probabilistic programming language Pyro flow in from the LF AI Foundation. Among other things, the ODPi comes with the open source metadata standard Egeria and OpenDS4All, which is geared towards academic projects.
