Intel's Linux Compute Stack Now Boasts Production-Ready OpenCL 3.0, Integrates IGSC FU

Shortly after OpenCL 3.0 was finalized last year it was enabled for Intel's open-source Compute Runtime stack (and even earlier with their Tiger Lake enablement). But since last year that OpenCL 3.0 support was marked as "beta" while last week was quietly promoted to being "production" grade.

With last week's Intel Compute-Runtime 21.26.20194 build and carried forward with today's 21.27.20266 build, the OpenCL 3.0 support is marked as production ready. This is a subtle change in noticing the difference from the version tables and just seems to reflect the good state of Intel's open-source OpenCL support. Even in the months of the "beta" support, OpenCL 3.0 with the Intel Compute-Runtime has been working well for me from Gen9 Skylake graphics through Gen12 Tiger Lake.

Intel considers their Skylake/Gen9 and later to have production grade OpenCL 3.0. There is OpenCL 3.0 too for Broadwell and Apollo Lake / Gemini Lake, but there the support is considered just as "maintenance" with those older platforms being less of a focus for Intel's open-source engineers. The Elkhart Lake OpenCL support is still considered "early support" but does seem in good standing overall.

The Intel Compute Runtime stack for Linux systems also exposes oneAPI Level Zero 1.1, which continues to be advertised as "pre-release" support.

Also notable out of today's Intel Compute Runtime release is the inclusion of a new component, libigsc. This new open-source component is the IGSC FU, or the Intel Graphics System Controller Firmware Update library. IGSC FU has been coming together since last year for dealing with the graphics system controller and managing of firmware updates. IGSC FU is also hosted separately on GitHub.

The latest open-source Intel Compute-Runtime stack for Linux systems can be downloaded via GitHub. Overall, Intel's open-source OpenCL support on Linux remains in stellar shape for Skylake through Xe Graphics hardware.