LF AI & Data Foundation
LF AI & Data Foundation is a Linux Foundation non-profit that hosts 67 open-source AI projects — including ONNX, Kedro, Docling, and OPEA — under neutral governance, serving developers, enterprise technology companies, and governments via tiered membership.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What LF AI & Data Foundation does
LF AI & Data Foundation is a non-profit sub-foundation of The Linux Foundation, founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco, that operates as a neutral, vendor-independent host for open-source AI and data infrastructure projects. The foundation's portfolio spans the AI lifecycle: ONNX provides model interoperability across deep learning frameworks; Kedro offers a Python framework for reproducible data science pipelines; DLRover automates distributed training of large models; Docling converts complex documents (PDF, DOCX, images) into structured data for downstream AI; Data Prep Kit cleans and transforms unstructured data for LLMs; BeeAI delivers an open agent-to-agent platform with the Agent Communication Protocol (ACP); and OPEA standardizes composable enterprise GenAI systems with RAG pipelines.
The foundation funds operations through tiered organizational membership (Premier, General, Associate) with Premier members including IBM, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Red Hat, Databricks, and Neural Magic. It does not charge for software; all 67 hosted projects (200M+ lines of code, 331K+ commits) are freely available on GitHub. Go-to-market is community-led, relying on technical working groups (9 active), regional user groups (Japan, India), and co-located events at Open Source Summit and UN Open Source Week to drive adoption.
Beyond project hosting, the foundation increasingly authors standards — RGAF (Responsible Generative AI Framework) aligned with EU AI Act, NIST AI Framework, ISO/IEC 42001, OECD AI Principles, and UNESCO Recommendation; the Model Openness Framework (MOF); and the DocLang AI-native document specification launched in June 2026. The foundation serves individual developers and data scientists, enterprise technology companies seeking ecosystem influence, and governments interested in sovereign AI and open-source governance.
LF AI & Data Foundation firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- LF AI & Data Foundation
- Legal name
- LF AI & Data Foundation
- Website
- https://lfaidata.foundation
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- LF AI & Data Foundation is a Linux Foundation non-profit that hosts 67 open-source AI projects — including ONNX, Kedro, Docling, and OPEA — under neutral governance, serving developers, enterprise technology companies, and governments via tiered membership.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
LF AI & Data Foundation industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Open Source AI Infrastructure Foundation
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- End-to-End MLOps & ML Platform Suites (HDAAABAA)
Keywords
Where LF AI & Data Foundation is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
LF AI & Data Foundation business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Others
Revenue model
- Membership Fees: The foundation generates revenue through membership tiers including Premier Members, General Members, and Associate Members. Premier members (such as Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, NVIDIA, Databricks) pay higher fees for governance participation and visibility benefits.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Premier Membership - Highest tier with full governance participation |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels10 records
LF AI & Data Foundation product offering
Product offeringCore offering
LF AI & Data Foundation operates as a nonprofit umbrella foundation under The Linux Foundation that hosts and governs open source projects spanning AI, machine learning, deep learning, and data. It delivers vendor-neutral governance, technical infrastructure, and community programs for 67 hosted projects (including ONNX, Kedro, DLRover, Docling, Data Prep Kit, BeeAI, and OPEA), and develops open standards such as the DocLang Specification, RGAF, and the Model Openness Framework.
Product overview
LF AI & Data Foundation is an umbrella foundation under the Linux Foundation that supports open source innovation in AI and data. The foundation hosts a portfolio of projects including ONNX (open format for deep learning model interoperability), Kedro (Python framework for reproducible data science code), DLRover (distributed training automation), Docling (document conversion and understanding), Data Prep Kit (data cleaning for LLMs), BeeAI (agent-to-agent platform), and OPEA (enterprise GenAI platform). Additional initiatives include the Responsible Generative AI Framework (RGAF), DocLang specification, Model Openness Framework, and Generative AI Commons community. The foundation provides a neutral, open governance environment for 67 projects with 100K+ contributors and 2,920+ contributing organizations.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- ONNX: Open Neural Network Exchange - an open format to represent deep learning models for interoperability across AI frameworks.
- Kedro
- DLRover
- Generative AI Commons
Products and services
- ONNX (Open Neural Network Exchange) ONNX is an open format to represent deep learning models, enabling AI developers to move models between state-of-the-art tools and frameworks and share models across the AI ecosystem.
- Kedro Kedro is an open-source Python framework for creating reproducible, maintainable, and modular data science code, applying software engineering best practices to machine learning code.
- DLRover DLRover makes distributed training of large AI models easy, stable, fast, and green by automatically training deep learning models on distributed clusters.
- Docling Docling is an open-source document conversion and understanding toolkit that ingests PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, and images to extract structured information for downstream AI pipelines.
- Data Prep Kit Data Prep Kit is a modular suite of tools designed to clean, transform, and trace unstructured data for LLMs with a focus on quality, transparency, and scalability.
- BeeAI BeeAI is the first open-source agent-to-agent platform enabling developers to build, discover, run, and compose agents using the open Agent Communication Protocol (ACP).
- Open Platform for Enterprise AI (OPEA) OPEA is a sandbox project providing open, standardized, modular, and composable RAG pipelines for enterprises, with a focus on open model development and enterprise-grade GenAI systems.
- Responsible Generative AI Framework (RGAF) RGAF establishes nine core dimensions for responsible AI aligned with global benchmarks including the EU AI Act, NIST AI Framework, ISO/IEC 42001, and OECD AI Principles.
- DocLang Specification DocLang is an open, universal, AI-native document format specification designed to improve how enterprises prepare, exchange, and govern document data for AI systems, preserving semantic meaning and geometric layout in a single format.
- Generative AI Commons A working group of LF AI & Data dedicated to fostering advancement and adoption of efficient, secure, reliable, and ethical Generative AI open-source innovations.
- Model Openness Framework (MOF) A framework for promoting completeness and openness in AI models for reproducibility, transparency, and usability.
- Acumos AI Acumos AI is a federated platform for managing AI and ML applications and sharing AI models with a marketplace for freely sharing AI solutions; the original launch project of the foundation in 2018.
- AI & Data Landscape An interactive landscape exploring open source AI, ML, and DL projects and listing members of LF AI & Data Foundation.
Quantifiable outcome
- 27,000+ GitHub stars for Docling project
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use LF AI & Data Foundation
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
LF AI & Data Foundation technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration6 records
AI capability11 records
Feature5 records
LF AI & Data Foundation partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and secondary.
- IBMcoreIBM is a Premier Member of LF AI & Data and founding member of the DocLang Working Group. IBM Research Zurich developed Docling, which was contributed to the foundation. IBM contributed three projects: Docling, BeeAI, and Data Prep Kit. IBM Fellow Dr. Kush Varshney participates in Generative AI Commons governance.
- NVIDIAcoreNVIDIA is a Premier Member and founding member of the DocLang Working Group. NVIDIA supports generative AI initiatives and contributes to open standards for AI-native document processing through the foundation.
- Red HatcoreRed Hat is a Premier Member and founding member of the DocLang Working Group. Red Hat contributes to enterprise AI standards and participates in OPEA project ecosystem.
- ABBYYsecondaryABBYY is a contributor to the DocLang Working Group, providing expertise in document processing and AI-native document format development.
- HumanSignalsecondaryHumanSignal is a contributor to the DocLang Working Group, supporting the development of open standards for AI document processing.
- AMDsecondaryAMD collaborated with openEuler community on the first SuperPoD-Ready OS, advancing AI and open-source infrastructure with new hardware solutions.
- Inspur CloudsecondaryInspur Cloud collaborated with openEuler on SuperPoD-Ready OS development for AI infrastructure.
- Digital ChinasecondaryDigital China partnered with openEuler community on AI-ready operating system development.
- Futurewei TechnologiessecondaryCo-published 'The State of Sovereign AI' report with Linux Foundation Research and LF AI & Data, exploring the role of open source in global AI strategy.
- Cooperative Open Intelligent Industry Computing Alliance (COIA)secondaryCOIA officially launched with 46 member organizations. LF AI & Data serves as a key partner, introducing OPEA and Adlik as seed initiatives to accelerate AI adoption in Chinese industries.
- OPEA Consortium PartnerscoreOPEA brings together industry leaders including Anyscale, Cloudera, Datastax, Domino Data Lab, Hugging Face, Intel, KX, MariaDB Foundation, Minio, Qdrant, Red Hat, SAS, VMware (Broadcom), Yellowbrick Data, and Zilliz to develop open, multi-provider GenAI systems with focus on RAG pipelines and enterprise-grade retrieval augmentation.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
LF AI & Data Foundation competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Apache Software Foundation: Hosts open source AI/ML projects (MXNet, Submarine, Airflow) under a vendor-neutral governance model. Directly comparable as a competing umbrella foundation for community-driven open source software.
- Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF): Sister Linux Foundation sub-foundation hosting Kubernetes, Kubeflow, and KServe for ML/AI infrastructure. Directly competes for enterprise AI infrastructure project hosting and Premier member dues.
- PyTorch Foundation: Linux Foundation sub-foundation stewarding PyTorch and related deep learning projects under Meta's lead. Directly comparable as an AI/ML-focused foundation with vendor-driven project governance.
- Eclipse Foundation: Hosts Eclipse Adoptium, Theia, and Jakarta EE under a working group model with member dues. Comparable as a competing open source foundation targeting enterprise software standards and developer ecosystems.
- OpenJS Foundation: Linux Foundation sub-foundation hosting Node.js, jQuery, and other JavaScript projects under neutral governance. Comparable as a sibling foundation competing for the same corporate member pool and developer mindshare.
Emerging players
- Hugging Face: Central hub for open source AI models, datasets, and Spaces with an emerging for-profit governance model. Comparable as a community-driven AI platform with overlapping model-interop and tool goals (and is a member of LF AI & Data's OPEA).
- CNCF (Kubeflow project): Kubernetes-native ML platform hosted under CNCF. Comparable as an open source MLOps platform suite targeting enterprise AI deployment, directly competing with LF AI & Data's DLRover and OPEA projects.
Others
- Open Source Initiative (OSI): Defines the Open Source Definition and approves licenses, including the OSD-compliant license requirement in LF AI & Data's RGAF. Comparable as an adjacent governance authority rather than a direct project host.
- Mozilla Foundation: Non-profit foundation stewarding open source browser technology and responsible AI initiatives. Comparable as a mission-driven non-profit funding open source through membership and donations, with a similar responsible-AI focus area.
Regional players
- NumFOCUS: Non-profit supporting scientific Python projects (NumPy, pandas, Jupyter) with a sponsor-based funding model. Comparable as a foundation stewarding open source data science and ML-adjacent tooling with similar governance and member dynamics.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
LF AI & Data Foundation social profiles
Digital presenceLF AI & Data Foundation compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
LF AI & Data Foundation financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
LF AI & Data Foundation leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
LF AI & Data Foundation funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
LF AI & Data Foundation M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about LF AI & Data Foundation
What does LF AI & Data Foundation do?
LF AI & Data Foundation operates as a nonprofit umbrella foundation under The Linux Foundation that hosts and governs open source projects spanning AI, machine learning, deep learning, and data. It delivers vendor-neutral governance, technical infrastructure, and community programs for 67 hosted projects (including ONNX, Kedro, DLRover, Docling, Data Prep Kit, BeeAI, and OPEA), and develops open standards such as the DocLang Specification, RGAF, and the Model Openness Framework.
Is LF AI & Data Foundation a public or private company?
LF AI & Data Foundation is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was LF AI & Data Foundation founded?
LF AI & Data Foundation was founded in 2018. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is LF AI & Data Foundation based?
LF AI & Data Foundation is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does LF AI & Data Foundation make money?
One revenue line is on record: membership Fees.
Who are LF AI & Data Foundation's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Apache Software Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), PyTorch Foundation, Eclipse Foundation and OpenJS Foundation. Emerging players are Hugging Face and CNCF (Kubeflow project). Others are Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Mozilla Foundation. NumFOCUS is listed as a regional player.
Does LF AI & Data Foundation have an API?
Yes. ONNX provides APIs for model interchange across deep learning frameworks. The ONNX project is an open format to represent deep learning models, enabling AI developers to move models between state-of-the-art tools. SDKs available in Python, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript.
What industry is LF AI & Data Foundation in?
LF AI & Data Foundation's product category is Open Source AI Infrastructure Foundation. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAABAA, End-to-End MLOps & ML Platform Suites. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.