Membership gives you IBM patent coverage, a vote in ISA governance, access to POWER compute resources, and a seat in a global network of engineers, chip designers, and researchers building on open POWER architecture.
Design POWER ISA-compliant processors with full IBM patent protection. Zero royalties, zero legal risk.
Shape the POWER ISA roadmap through formal RFCs and working groups. Your engineers write the spec.
Linux, GCC, LLVM, PyTorch, and OpenBLAS already support POWER. Real workloads run today.
Members get access to POWER compute resources at the OpenPOWER HUB hosted at Oregon State University.
The Enterprise Silicon Initiative (ESI) is a founding-member program for regulated industries that currently run IBM POWER at scale. As an ESI Founding Member, your compliance requirements — FIPS 140-3, DORA, SOC 2, FedRAMP — are written directly into the silicon specification. You also gain OPF-negotiated access to the licensed IBM POWER design — a production-validated enterprise baseline that cuts the path to sovereign silicon from 5–7 years to 2–3. OPF Silver membership, a permanent founding designation, and an ESI Advisory Board seat are all included. The founding window closes after the first 20 institutions.
Choose the membership level that fits your organization or personal goals.
OpenPOWER membership spans sovereign chip programs, silicon startups, research universities, and enterprise software teams. Here is what each group comes for.
Open architecture means you can audit the entire stack — from ISA to firmware — with no single-vendor dependency. Countries and agencies building domestic chip programs use OPF membership to access IBM patent coverage and participate in ISA governance on equal footing.
IBM's patent grant removes the single largest legal barrier to POWER processor design. Pair that with an open, formally governed ISA and a proven software ecosystem — GCC, LLVM, Linux — and you have everything needed to tape out without starting from scratch.
HUB compute at Oregon State University gives researchers real POWER hardware without capital cost. Collaborative open silicon projects — A2O core, Microwatt, LibreBMC — plus an academic network spanning C-DAC, IIT-Bombay, and 40+ institutions make OPF the hub for POWER research.
POWER runs in data centers across financial services, telecom, and government. OPF membership puts your product in front of those customers, connects you to the AI SIG, and opens a path to OPF compliance certification for POWER-compatible workloads.
If your organisation already runs IBM POWER for core banking, insurance, clinical systems, or critical infrastructure — the Enterprise Silicon Initiative (ESI) is the founding-member program designed for you. Write your compliance requirements into the silicon spec and hold a governance seat in the open POWER silicon roadmap.
Concrete benefits from day one, across legal, technical, community, and commercial dimensions.
Design, build, and ship POWER ISA-compliant processors under IBM's patent grant — no royalties, no legal exposure, no separate negotiation required.
Participate in formal RFCs and working groups that shape the POWER ISA roadmap. Higher tiers hold voting rights on architecture decisions.
Access POWER server resources at the OpenPOWER HUB at Oregon State University — ideal for CI, benchmarking, and research workloads.
A growing global membership across 6 continents — spanning national chip programs, hyperscalers, and leading universities.
Collaborate on production-ready open silicon: the A2O out-of-order POWER core, Microwatt soft core, LibreBMC, and the POWER Commons / LibrePOWER initiative.
Linux, GCC, LLVM, PyTorch, and OpenBLAS all ship with POWER support today. Your software runs on day one without porting effort.
Priority access to OpenPOWER Summits and co-located events at Open Compute Summit, IBM TechXchange, SC supercomputing conference, and more.
Logo placement, joint press releases, and co-marketing through OPF channels to reach a global audience of POWER architecture practitioners.
Start your application through the Linux Foundation enrollment portal, or reach out to discuss the right tier for your organization.
