Highlights of the 19th China Linux Kernel Developers Conference (CLK 2024)

On October 26, 2024 the 19th China Linux Kernel Developers Conference (CLK) was held in Wuhan, Hubei, attracting more than 80,000 online viewers and nearly 400 kernel developers from across the country.

The conference was jointly organized by Tsinghua University, Intel, Huawei, Alibaba Cloud, Fujitsu Nanjing, Dijie Software, Tencent Cloud, OPPO, ByteDance, Vivo, Ant Group, Loongson, and other institutions, with the theme “Freedom, Collaboration, Innovation”. Its mission is to promote open‑source technology and facilitate communication among Linux kernel enthusiasts.

The event featured a main forum and five sub‑forums:

Memory Sub‑Forum : presented by Vivo’s Director of Underlying Technology Research, focusing on AI‑centric large‑model challenges, computing‑bound and memory‑bound bottlenecks, and kernel optimizations that doubled model loading speed.

Storage I/O Sub‑Forum : covered advanced storage stack techniques.

Architecture & Virtualization Sub‑Forum : showcased virtualization and architecture innovations.

Scheduling & Locks Sub‑Forum : discussed recent advances in Linux scheduling and lock mechanisms.

Comprehensive Sub‑Forum : included a round‑table titled “Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions of the Linux Kernel in the AI Era”, moderated by Alibaba Cloud senior expert Song Zhuo and featuring experts from Huawei OS Kernel Lab, Loongson, Tencent, OPPO, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Key technical talks included:

“AI Edge‑Side Large Models: Current State and Development of the Linux Kernel” by Vivo’s Director Yang Kai‑xian.

“Squeezing Memory from the Kernel Perspective” by ByteDance kernel lead Li Zefan, which introduced memory‑usage pain points and CXL‑based future optimizations.

“Scalable Proposal (GIPC) for RISC‑V IOMMU and Linux Roadmap” by XuanTie kernel lead Guo Ren, covering PASID, scalable mode, and two Linux roadmaps.

“Intelligent Security Detection for Large‑Scale Open‑Source Software” by Huazhong University’s Professor Zou Deqing, focusing on large‑model‑driven vulnerability analysis and clone‑vulnerability detection.

The opening ceremony was delivered by Prof. Chen Kai, Vice Dean of Huazhong University’s School of Cyberspace Security, and Vice President Gao Liang, who announced the establishment of the Huazhong University Open‑Source Innovation Institute.

The conference concluded with thanks to the organizing committee, mentors, university leaders, and all speakers and participants, and announced that video recordings, slide decks, and the GitHub repository (https://github.com/ChinaLinuxKernel/CLK2024) are available for further study.