Microsoft unveils C++ technology to encourage mass parallel programming

The technology will be open and available across all vendor hardware

Microsoft has released details of its new C++ technology, dubbed C++ Accelerated Massive Parallelism (C++ AMP), which aims to make parallel programming easier for "millions" of developers.

Herb Sutter, principal native-languages architect for Microsoft, outlined the new technology yesterday at AMD's Fusion Developer Summit.

Microsoft recognises that multi-core systems, especially those seen in dual-core processors, are gaining market-wide traction.

"This is the first year that consumer tablets and PCs are dual-core. We are there. We are the end of the first phase of the concurrency evolution," said Sutter in his keynote speech.

Multi-core systems are developed using parallel programming, which is notoriously complicated and generally reserved for the more experienced developer.

Sutter hopes that the release of C++ AMP, with its apparent ease of use, will lead to a mass market of parallel programmers.

Though it is still not clear how this new technology will be made more accessible, Sutter did reiterate that it should not take a page and a half to programme the Hello World programme with C++ AMP like it otherwise does with parallel processing.

Sutter also said that Microsoft is going to make parallel programming "accessible to lots and lots of programmers, in ways you haven't seen before", and claimed it will become "mainstream" with C++ AMP.

C++ AMP will be open, which will allow it to be programmed across hardware from any vendor.