Khronos Makes Improvements To OpenCL SDK, Plots Roadmap

It's been nearly one year since Khronos released OpenCL 3.0 while today they are shipping some improvements to the OpenCL Software Developer Kit (SDK).

The updated OpenCL SDK is now provided in binary form to complement all their open-source source code releases to this stage. Their official binaries are limited to Windows x86 and Windows x64 and served up alongside the usual tagged source releases on GitHub.

The updated OpenCL SDK 2022.04.0.1 also includes new native utility libraries, support for auto-fetching o dependencies, and a new suite of native CL code samples.

The new OpenCL SDK utility libraries are libOpenCLUtils as implemented in ISO C and libOpenCLUtilsCpp as the equivalent for ISO C++. The OpenCL SDK has also improved integration around the CMake build system.

As for the OpenCL SDK roadmap ahead:

Looking forward, the OpenCL Working Group at Khronos plans to contribute to Kitware’s upstream FindOpenCL.cmake, ensuring the new OpenCL:: namespace and its component support become increasingly reliable and comprehensive over time.

Package managers have been steadily gaining traction for C/C++ with varying degrees of support for installing OpenCL development files. Khronos will notify and assist package maintainers to build from the OpenCL SDK to both reduce maintenance costs and improve feature coherence across the OpenCL ecosystem.

The OpenCL Working Group has also begun to assist distribution maintainers package newer versions of OpenCL-related packages, as well as providing easy installation methods that integrate well with various operating systems, including using PPAs, for those that wish to use newer OpenCL builds than what their OS distribution provides as default.

More details on the OpenCL SDK update via Khronos.org.