New Parallel Java Initiative

HSA Foundation wants to bring parallel acceleration to Java virtual machines. 

The Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation (HSA) has announced an initiative to bring better parallel processing capabilities to Java so that Java programs will be able to access the potential potential of GPUs and other recent HPC innovations. HSA is a consortium of companies (including AMD, ARM, and others) committed to "building a heterogeneous compute software ecosystem which is rooted on open royalty free industry standards."

HSA president Phil Rogers rolled out the new concept at the Hot Chips symposium in Palo Alto, CA. According to a report at PC World, the new Java specifications are slated to appear with Java 9 in 2015.

Making Java more parallel will help to employ the many legions of Java programmers as chips become more powerful and parallel computing becomes more common throughout the industry. The efforts of SoC vendors like AMD and ARM to encourage standards-based, uniform interfaces will serve to reduce the importance of vendor-controlled software silos and put them emphasis back on the hardware.