Open Compute Project


Open Compute Project

An initiative spearheaded in 2013 by Facebook to design server motherboards that accept different types of CPU chips. The chips would be housed on plug-in cards in contrast to motherboards today that have sockets that accept only one type of CPU housed in a specific chip package. Supporting up to 10 cards on one server motherboard, the main goal of Open Compute is to allow ARM chips to replace or co-exist with x86 chips. Under this approach, x86 CPUs from different vendors could also operate in the same server. See ARM and x86.