Target joins Open Compute Project to become platinum member

U.S retail corporation Target will join the Open Compute Project (OCP) as a Platinum member following record growth for the company in 2020.

The announcement was made during an ICCON conference hosted by the U.S retailer last week, and the partnership aims to expand the development of edge computing use cases within the company. 

The retailer is the first major U.S retailer to become a platinum member, paving the way for others to join the partnership in the future. 

"We are very excited to join the OCP and partner with the community on new use cases for networking and edge computing," said Mike McNamara, Chief Information Officer of Target.

He added: "This type of open and increased collaboration will help us all create better technology that’s purpose-built for enterprise needs."

Target also has a distributed footprint, which McNamara says can influence new OCP use cases for networking and edge computing.

This news follows a rise in growth for the organisation in 2020, with customers shopping with the retailer and using their "same-day services."

The Open Compute Project claims that it allows Target to partner with industry leaders in cloud technology, as the majority of the retailer's success "is supported by underlying technology," says Target.

Bill Carter, CTO for the Open Compute Project Foundation, believes that joining the business is not a first for Target.

He said: “Working together and open sourcing is not new for Target. Many of the retailer’s engineers have already been involved in various OCP Projects and we’ve seen tremendous value from their participation.

"Today’s announcement further demonstrates Target’s long-term commitment to advance and contribute to the open source community for the benefit of all,” concluded Carter.