We’re excited to introduce OAAX (Open AI Accelerator eXchange), a new sandbox-stage project at the LF AI & Data Foundation. Contributed by Network Optix, OAAX is an open standard that streamlines AI model deployment across diverse AI accelerators—helping developers focus on building, not porting.
Bridging the Gap Between AI Models and AI Accelerators
In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI hardware, developers often face challenges when adapting AI models to run on different accelerators. Each AI accelerator comes with its own set of tools, libraries, and optimization techniques, leading to increased complexity, development time and steep learning curve.
OAAX solves this complexity by introducing a standardized framework that unifies AI model deployment across all AI accelerators. At its core, the OAAX standard is built around two key components:
Model Conversion Toolchains
OAAX provides hardware-specific toolchains, typically delivered as Docker images, that convert AI models— in ONNX format—into optimized binaries tailored for target AI accelerators. These toolchains handle the full conversion process, including model validation, parsing, hardware-level optimization, and ensuring the final output is efficient and deployment-ready.
Runtime Integration
Once converted, the OAAX runtime interface defines a consistent and hardware-agnostic way to execute the model on its designated accelerator. This runtime abstraction allows developers to integrate AI accelerators into their applications without worrying about device-specific APIs or execution logic. The result is a seamless, scalable deployment experience that works across a wide variety of hardware platforms.
Join the OAAX Community
OAAX’s acceptance into the Linux Foundation AI & Data as a Sandbox Project marks a significant milestone in our journey to standardize AI model deployment across diverse hardware platforms. We invite developers, organizations, and hardware manufacturers to collaborate with us in shaping the future of AI deployment.
Together, we can build a more unified, efficient, and accessible AI ecosystem. Join us on Github.
