OCP Building Block Strategy

Overview

The OCP Building Block Strategy is a design methodology that pre-validates modular hardware components through EVT, DVT, and PVT stages and places them on a shelf for customers to combine and customize for their specific workloads — without commissioning a full bespoke new-product development cycle. It directly operationalizes the OCP founding philosophy articulated by Jonathan Hiliger at Facebook: cost-optimized, workload-tuned hardware instead of multi-purpose OEM systems.

The strategy is grounded in the OCP Modular Hardware System (MHS/DC-MHS) standard, which defines a three-layer taxonomy: HPM components (motherboard, CPU socket), rear chassis, and front chassis (I/O). Customers can mix and match across these layers — selecting their preferred CPU architecture (AMD SP5/SP8, Intel SP BHS/OKS, Ampere, NVIDIA Grace/Vera), chassis form factor (FLW, SDNO, ORv3 1-OU/2-OU), and storage/GPU front end (U.2, E3.S, E1.S, GPU/AI) — without redesigning the full system. Pre-tested and validated modules reduce validation time, and standard interface points provide environment connection compatibility across configurations.

Jabil exemplifies this approach in its Intelligent Infrastructure segment: the company sits on the OCP MHS design board and offers the full three-layer catalog, enabling tailored server types including Precision Timing, Inference, and ORv3-Optimized configurations.