The New Stack Makers

At Arm, open source is the default approach, with proprietary software requiring justification, says Andrew Wafaa, fellow and senior director of software communities. Speaking at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, Wafaa emphasized Arm’s decade-long commitment to open source, highlighting its investment in key projects like the Linux kernel, GCC, and LLVM. This investment is strategic, ensuring strong support for Arm’s architecture through vital tools and system software.Wafaa also challenged the hype around GPUs in AI, asserting that CPUs—especially those enhanced with Arm’s Scalable Matrix Extension (SME2) and Scalable Vector Extension (SVE2)—are often more suitable for inference workloads. CPUs offer greater flexibility, and Arm’s innovations aim to reduce dependency on expensive GPU fleets.On the AI framework front, Wafaa pointed to PyTorch as the emerging hub, likening its ecosystem-building potential to Kubernetes. As a PyTorch Foundation board member, he sees PyTorch becoming the central open source platf