AMD ROCm Going Open-Source: Will Include Software Stack & Hardware Documentation

AMD intends to release certain sections of its ROCm software stack and hardware documentation as open-source in a future update, as part of its efforts to improve its software and AI ecosystem for consumers.

AMD Announces Plans to Open-Source Parts of ROCm Software Stack and Hardware Documentation Based on Community Feedback

Recently, there was controversy surrounding AMD’s software and AI support for ROCm. TinyGrad, a company owned by George Hotz, publicly criticized AMD for its inconsistent driver support, resulting in an unreliable user experience with their Radeon RX GPUs. A suggested solution was to open-source the Radeon Software and ROCm, allowing the community to contribute driver fixes and optimizations.

I have spoken with AMD on multiple occasions, we have gotten through to top people, and they have been quite nice to us. I believe they want to be more open, and obviously they don’t want their driver to have bugs.

Unfortunately, this access and responses prolonged this…

— the tiny corp (@__tinygrad__) March 19, 2024

According to the recent announcement from

As community interest grows in ROCm on Radeon, we’ve created a tracker to capture feedback and provide updates.

Coming soon: Open sourcing additional portions of our software stack and more hardware documentation.https://t.co/huuaA63Kds

— AMD Radeon (@amdradeon) April 2, 2024

AMD has successfully extended ROCm 6.1 support to their consumer-level hardware, including the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, Radeon RX 7900 XT, Radeon RX 7900 GRE, Radeon Pro W7900, and Radeon Pro W7800. This, combined with their implementation of various AI optimizations, has resulted in a robust software stack. Additionally, the open-source aspect may prove beneficial for their future endeavors.

AMD’s ROCm will soon enter the competition with industry giants such as NVIDIA’s CUDA and Intel’s oneAPI, where the former currently holds the top position in the AI sector and the latter is being developed by multiple companies, including Intel, as an alternative to CUDA. It will be intriguing to observe the positioning of ROCm after the open-source launch.