Strategic Initiatives
OCP Strategic Initiatives are higher-level groups for collaboration across and between the OCP Projects, particularly to solve the co-design required for AI infrastructure. Three initiatives are active. Open Systems for AI is the umbrella that coordinates the Community's work across Projects and Initiatives, with its own steering committee to identify goals and gaps. Open Data Centers for AI tackles the challenges of delivering massive AI data centers at scale, from order-of-magnitude increases in rack power density to GW-scale facilities and multi-GW campuses. Open Cluster Designs for AI develops Open Pod Group and Open Cluster designs, with guidelines spanning small, enterprise, neocloud, and hyperscale deployments.
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About This Project
OCP Strategic Initiatives serve as higher-level groups for collaboration across and between the OCP Projects, particularly to solve for some of the co-design required for AI infrastructure.
The following Strategic Initiatives are currently active:
Open Systems for AI (umbrella initiative)
The umbrella structure that coordinates the Community’s work across OCP Projects and other Initiatives. It operates much like a Project, with regular calls and a mailing list, but uniquely has a steering committee that helps identify goals and gaps, so that the larger Open Systems for AI group and the various Community workgroups can cooperate and prioritize work to deliver the promise of an open ecosystem for AI data center infrastructure.
Addresses the challenges of delivering massive AI data centers at scale — an order-of-magnitude increase in rack power densities, with roadmaps pointing to 1 MW racks, GW-scale facilities, and multi-GW campuses — uniting the community and project teams to develop standardized, efficient, and flexible solutions, coordinated within the Open Systems for AI umbrella.
Develops Open Pod Group and Open Cluster designs optimized for AI infrastructure, so that system design and integration problems are not solved repeatedly as one-offs; the resulting guidelines and best practices span small, enterprise, neocloud, and hyperscale deployments.
Details about how Strategic Initiatives are chartered and governed, and how to get involved, will be added in the near future.
Scope
Strategic Initiatives currently span:
Open Systems for AI — umbrella coordination of the Community’s AI infrastructure work across Projects and Initiatives
Open Data Centers for AI — physical facilities and grid interconnect for GW-scale AI data centers and multi-GW campuses
Open Cluster Designs for AI — Open Pod Group and Open Cluster designs, guidelines, and best practices for AI infrastructure
The full scope of the Strategic Initiatives program will be added in the near future.
Strategic Initiatives calendar
Sub-Projects
Open Cluster Designs for Artificial Intelligence
Open Cluster Designs for AI is an OCP Strategic Initiative that develops Open Pod Group and Open Cluster designs optimized for AI infrastructure. AI infrastructure demands heavy investment in system design and integration, and the same problems are often solved repeatedly, leaving most designs as one-offs. Extending the Open Systems for AI initiative, it produces guidelines and best practices spanning small, enterprise, neocloud, and hyperscale deployments. Its scope covers AI cluster designs detailed enough for procurement and deployment, including networking, topology, cabling, air- and liquid-cooled solutions, and power and cooling infrastructure, while leveraging existing OCP contributions and management standards.
Open Data Center for AI
Open Data Centers for AI (also "Open DC for AI") is an OCP Strategic Initiative launched in response to the late-2025 open letter in which most hyperscalers called for more open collaboration on fungible data center facilities, grid interconnect, open AI hardware, and systems management. With rack power densities rising toward 1 MW racks and GW-scale facilities and multi-GW campuses on the horizon, the initiative unites the community to deliver standardized, efficient, and flexible solutions, coordinated within the Open Systems for AI umbrella. Its five core priorities are open data center reference designs, energy and grid solutions, open and standard SLAs, telemetry and management solutions, and power estimation methodologies.
Open Systems for Artificial Intelligence
Open Systems for AI is the umbrella Strategic Initiative that coordinates the OCP Community's work across its Projects and other Initiatives. It operates much like a Project but uniquely has a steering committee that identifies goals and gaps so that community workgroups can cooperate and prioritize work toward an open ecosystem for AI data center infrastructure. Its scope covers guiding and highlighting key AI infrastructure contributions and facilitating workshops and OCP Foundation alliances, organized into three work areas: DC Physical Infrastructure, DC IT Infrastructure, and Systems Management. Key resources include the whitepaper, OCP Academy AI courses, the AI Marketplace, and a 2025 series of community workshops.