Plato wrote: ”Beginning something is the most important part of the work.”  With our Accelerated Processing Units and first software developer conference, AMD began two really big things in 2011. And based on the initial APU product reviews and our lineup of keynotes and technical sessions for “AMD Fusion 11”, it seems the Accelerated Processing era is well begun.  Esteemed experts from AMD, ARM and Microsoft are among the line-up of keynote speakers for the inaugural AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS), taking place June 13-16, 2011 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington.

As people expect more vivid and natural experiences from their various devices and ever more performance, the need for heterogeneous computing, such as combining serial, parallel and other special-purpose processing capabilities in a single design, grows.  A terrific lineup of keynote presentations at AMD Fusion 11 will display from different perspectives how developers can get the most advantage from heterogeneous computing. Here’s the current rundown of keynotes::  -- Herb Sutter, Microsoft principal architect of Native Languages, will showcase upcoming innovations to bring access to increasingly heterogeneous compute resources directly into the world’s most popular native languages.  -- Jem Davies, ARM fellow and vice president of Technology, Media Processing Division, will deliver a keynote about ARM’s long history of heterogeneous computing, its future strategy, and ARM’s support of standards, including OpenCL™.  -- AMD corporate fellow Phil Rogers will explore the programmer’s guide to Accelerated Processing Units (APUs).  -- Eric Demers, AMD corporate vice president and chief technology officer of graphics, will deliver a keynote that chronicles the evolution of AMD’s graphics cores and discuss next-generation AMD graphics technology. Technical sessions, tutorials, hands-on labs and keynote presentations will cover a range of topics from heterogeneous and high-performance computing (HPC), to next-generation user interfaces, parallel programming tools and industry-standard APIs such as OpenCL™, OpenGL™, Java and Microsoft DirectCompute. Check out the Session Catalog for a list of more than 90 in-depth technology sessions to be presented by industry and academic experts.  I hope you will join us at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit to collaborate with software developers, academics and innovators around parallel programming and industry standards.  If you are interested in the latest software tools and training, you can’t afford to miss this event. Register for AFDS on the event website and take advantage of a special low registration fee of $300 this inaugural year. John Taylor is the Director of Client Product Marketing and Software at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.