10/4/2017 Joseph Park, ECE ILLINOIS
An IBM Fellow, Bradley McCredie's (BSCompE '86, MSEE '87, PhD '91) previous experience with Power8 gives him a unique perspective.
Written by Joseph Park, ECE ILLINOIS
With the Power8 generation coming to a close, IBM is preparing to launch the Power9. Amidst the chatter surrounding its launch is ECE ILLINOIS alumnus Bradley McCredie (BSCompE '86, MSEE '87, PhD '91), the vice-president of power systems development and the president of the OpenPower foundation. He is also an IBM Fellow, designed the opening up of the power architecture, and has also led the co-development with ODMs and chip makers in Asia along with hyperscalers Google and Rackspace.
McCredie joined IBM in 1991, initially focusing on electromagnetic design and electronic packaging for the mainframe systems but later moved over to the RS/6000 systems organization and developed the Power3 chip.
In a recent interview, McCredie discussed the impending impact of the Power9 and noted, “The consumption model is moving up the stack, and we are going to blaze a trail integrating out cloud function, app stores, and containers. You take that, make a cluster out of it, and one of the key applications is going to be artificial intelligence.” Concerning the rollout for the Power9, McCredie added, “The systems that are engaged in the Summit and Sierra machines, we will make them available commercially this year.”
When asked about the near future of the Power8, McCredie responded, “This is not at all tied to where customers are at in their processor lifecycles, it is tied to giving customers the right software at the right time.”
Read the original article on the IT Jungle website.