Introduction

Intel provides drivers, containers, and middleware to enable Intel GPUs on Linux. Intel® Open Middleware Xe (Intel® OMIX) has recently been added to simplify AI stack installation for Intel® Arc Pro B-Series Graphics.

Kernel mode drivers

The following kernel mode drivers provide support for Intel GPUs on Linux:

  • Xe KMD: for Intel GPUs based on Xe2 and newer architectures. Xe KMD is included in the upstream Linux kernel (6.11+) and provides native support for these GPUs.

  • i915 KMD: for GPUs based on Xe and earlier architectures. For Intel® Data Center GPU Max Series and Intel® Data Center GPU Flex Series, Intel provides out-of-tree i915 Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) drivers through the Intel GPU repository, with support for all hardware features of these GPUs.

Container images

To simplify deployment on supported host systems, Intel offers the following pre-configured container images as the fastest way to get started:

  • Intel® Open Middleware Xe (Intel® OMIX): AI stack container images with optimized deep learning frameworks and tools for Intel GPUs, enabling accelerated AI workloads.

  • PyTorch* on Intel® Hardware: Container images with PyTorch optimized for Intel GPU hardware, supporting both CPU and GPU acceleration.

See the release notes for each container for more information on supported GPUs and host operating system requirements. These containers are hosted at docker hub Intel repository.

Intel® Open Middleware Xe (Intel® OMIX)

Intel OMIX provides an integrated compute stack for supported AI and general-purpose GPU workloads on Intel® Arc Pro B-Series Graphics, including:

  • Intel® Graphics Compute Runtime for oneAPI Level Zero and OpenCL™ Driver

  • Intel SYCL compiler

  • Intel performance libraries

Intel OMIX is currently supported only on the following Intel® Arc Pro B-Series GPUs.

  • Intel® Arc™ Pro B50

  • Intel® Arc™ Pro B60

  • Intel® Arc™ Pro B65

  • Intel® Arc™ Pro B70