It seems like just yesterday I was meeting with some of the foremost experts in software innovation and heterogeneous computing at our inaugural AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS), yet here I am today already planning my return back to my former stomping grounds in Bellevue, WA for this year’s summit in June… and I’m not alone.

Four of the most esteemed experts in the software developer community will keynote AFDS this year:

• Dr. Amr Awadallah, co-founder and CTO, Cloudera
• Tom Malloy, senior vice president and chief software architect, Adobe
• Mark Papermaster, senior vice president and CTO, AMD
• Phil Rogers, corporate fellow, AMD

While it’s premature to get into exact specifics, I can tell you Dr. Amr Awadallah’s presentation, “Apache Hadoop: The Modern Data Operating System” will cover how Apache Hadoop is evolving and the advanced capabilities it lends to solving key business challenges, while gaining the ability to ask and get answers to previously un-addressable big questions.

Tom Malloy will cover how the growth in parallel CPU computing has opened up exciting new horizons for intensive software applications, along with new possibilities and challenges associated with heterogeneous computing.

Of course, we launched our first generation APU (formerly codenamed “Llano”), in market as the Vision A-Series APU, at AFDS last year. We also showed you a sneak peek at our 2^nd Gen APU “Trinity” at the summit. We’re now brining that APU to market for desktops, notebooks, and premium ultrathins mid-year 2012: click here to watch a video of me at CES showing it off.

Well, at AFDS 2012 you can expect to hear more details about our 3^rd Gen APU planned for 2013 from none other than Mark Papermaster, AMD CTO. As AMD continues to build toward the full set of performance and programming benefits of Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA), Mark will outline how the 3^rd Gen APUs will represent a huge step forward on that path. In talking to Mark, I know he’s excited about connecting with the GPGPU and heterogeneous developer community.

And Phil Rogers’ keynote, “The Programmers Guide to a Universe of Possibility” will cover new advancements AMD has made with HSA and open programming languages, along with live demos featuring the latest in personal computing enabled by these advancements.

But we’re just getting started. In the coming weeks, we’ll announce more keynote speakers, along with more than one hundred breakout sessions covering topics from gaming and consumer graphics to cloud computing and programming tools.

If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you sign up here to receive the latest information about AFDS, including keynote announcements, tracks and session and how/when to register.

John Taylor is the director of  Global Product Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.