Taiwan's ITRI Opens World's First OCP Certification Center

The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a Taiwanese government-funded research institute, has formally opened the world's first OCP (Open Compute Project) certification center in Taiwan, aiming to help Taiwanese cloud computing companies accelerate entry into the lucrative market for data centers.

OCP was initiated in 2011 by Facebook to openly share designs of data centers and jointly stipulate related standards. In November, 2013, the OCP foundation formally approved ITRI to prepare the establishment of that center, in hopes of taking advantage of the Taiwanese R&D institute's superior verification technologies, its non-profit organization status and geographic advantages in the Asia Pacific to better meet demand for cloud data centers worldwide.

In fact, ITRI has been focused on Taiwan's development of cloud computing over the past few years, reflected by the fact that the institute joined hands with Cloud Computing Association in Taiwan to initiate the Open Compute Project Taiwan (OCPT) last May to focus on related hardware development, standard stipulations and other tasks for prompting cloud technologies and applications. At that time, 8 Taiwanese large-sized enterprises involved in the project included Inventec Corp., Asustek Computer Inc., Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., Delta Electronics Inc., Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile Corp. and Far Eastone Telecommunications Inc.

The opening of the world's first OCP certification center has riveted intense attention from industrialists and experts worldwide, including Charlie Manese, OCP's vice president of channel development, who was present at the opening ceremony held March 3.

By setting up the center that offers verification and certification services to hardware developers worldwide, ITRI looks to assist Taiwanese cloud computing firms to step up penetrating the global market for data centers, which is worth US$10 billion at least annually. (SC)