Milind Kulkarni, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Associate Head of Teaching and Learning

Purdue University will establish a oneAPI Center of Excellence on its West Lafayette campus. Facilitated through Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the center will take students’ original artificial intelligence and high-performance computing research projects to the next level through teaching oneAPI in the classroom.

oneAPI is an open, multiarchitecture, multivendor programming model for CPUs and accelerator architectures, such as graphics processing units and field programmable gate arrays. Based on standards, oneAPI simplifies software development and delivers uncompromised performance for accelerated computing without proprietary lock-in. This is accomplished while enabling the integration of existing code. oneAPI allows developers to choose the best accelerator architecture for the specific problem they are trying to solve without needing to rewrite software for the next architecture and platform.

The oneAPI Center of Excellence is building oneAPI multiarchitecture programming concepts into the ECE curriculum; Purdue faculty will use curated content from Intel, including teaching kits and certified instructor courses. Faculty and students will be provided access to the latest Intel hardware and oneAPI software tools via Intel’s Developer Cloud

“We are very excited to collaborate with Intel on a oneAPI Center of Excellence,” said Milind Kulkarni, associate head of teaching and learning and a professor in electrical and computer engineering. “The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering offers a wide variety of classes in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence to students across the College of Engineering and at Purdue. We look forward to offering our students access to top-of-the-line hardware and cutting-edge software and libraries. These resources will give our students the ability to explore the frontiers of what is possible in emerging AI and HPC areas and equip them to become the next generation of leaders across engineering.”

David Inouye, Purdue assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will teach the pilot course, scheduled to be offered in fall 2023, in which oneAPI curriculum will be incorporated.

“Intel’s Developer Cloud with GPUs can enable students to tackle more realistic and full-scale AI class projects that were previously infeasible,” Inouye said.

“Purdue’s track record as one of the most innovative universities in America with its world-changing research, programs and culture of inclusion is a perfect fit for the oneAPI Center of Excellence,” said Scott Apeland, senior director of Intel Developer Relations. “By giving Purdue students access to the latest AI software and hardware, we’ll see the next generation of developers, scientists and engineers delivering innovations that will change the world. We’re excited to assist Purdue in embracing the next giant leap in accelerated computing.” 

The collaboration also will connect Purdue students and researchers with Intel engineers, providing opportunities to discuss new innovations and developments in accelerator research, said Timothy Rogers, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Purdue-Intel liaison. 

“We are excited about the opportunities this collaboration opens up as both parties explore how to program and design the accelerators of tomorrow,” Rogers said.