AMD Releases Highly-Anticipated Ryzen AI "XDNA" Driver on Linux, Supports Phoenix & Strix APUs

AMD has finally released its XDNA driver on Linux, targeting the APUs that feature "Ryzen AI" capabilities & expanding its support on the platform.

AMD's New Driver Release at Linux Aims At Taking AI Performance To The Next Level, With Phoenix & Strix APUs

Back at CES 2023, AMD announced its dedicated AI engine from Ryzen CPUs known as Ryzen AI. As a part of its XDNA AI Engine, the Ryzen AI co-processor is an on-die and dedicated chip that can be used to boost AI capabilities. AMD disclosed that the Ryzen AI Engine can drive up to 4 concurrent AI streams while multi-tasking and delivering up to 35% higher responsiveness than just a single AI stream. The engine debuted with AMD's Ryzen 7040 series "Phoenix" APUs and made huge strides amongst users; however, one area Team Red lacked was bringing in support at Linux, but this has been catered to now.

Phoronix reports that AMD has dropped in their first public code for the XDNA AI driver at Linux, which provides support for the "Ryzen AI" engine on the platform. The new driver will only be compatible with Phoenix and Hawk Point APUs for now and has reportedly completed its support for next-gen Strix Point APUs as well. To run the driver, one must have Linux 6.7 kernel or newer installed, which comes with "IOMMU SVA" support enabled.

System Requirements

To run AI applications, your system needs

• Processor:
  • To run AI applications (test machine): RyzenAI processor, for example Phoenix/Strix
  • To build this repository (build machine): Any x86 processors, but recommend AMD processor
• Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04
• Linux Kernel: v6.7 with IOMMU SVA support (see below)
• Installed XRT base package
  • To make sure the XRT base package works with the plug-in package, better to build it from xrt submodule in this repo (/xrt)

The inclusion of the XDNA driver in AMD's software resources at the platform is certainly a huge addition since not only will it help in capitalizing on the AI performance present in the "Ryzen AI" engine, but it shows that Team Red is dedicated to shaping up its resources to their very best.

In the Ryzen 8040 APU family, AMD has already offered a 60% boost to the NPU performance and it will also deliver a 3x boost later this year with Strix Point APUs. On the other hand, Intel is also aiming to bring major NPU (AI) performance uplifts with its future CPU families which is further going to enrich the AI PC ecosystem with powerful solutions and capabilities.

News Source: Phoronix