A statement from AlmaLinux said the new team would include seasoned professionals and field experts who were dedicated to help users profit from their choice.

The group will offer advocacy, guidance and support for the HPC and AI users within the AlmaLinux ecosystem.

Hayden Barnes, SIG leader and senior open source community manager for AI Software at HPE, said: "AlmaLinux's status as a community-driven enterprise Linux holds incredible promise for the future of HPC and AI.

"Its transparency and stability empowers researchers, developers, and organisations to collaborate, customise, and optimise their computing environments, fostering a culture of innovation and accelerating breakthroughs in scientific research and cutting-edge AI/ML."

Zacarias Benta, founding SIG member and IT engineer, Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics, added: “AlmaLinux has become our main Linux distribution, due to its community focus, openness and support.

"It has allowed us to operate and deliver services for research and innovation in a wide range of scientific and technological domains. We strive for excellence and AlmaLinux has provided us the tools to deliver high quality HPC and AI/ML services.”

Markus Hilger, founding SIG member and HPC engineer, MEGWARE, commented: “AlmaLinux is the Linux distribution of choice for our HPC/AI clusters. The community, the openness and the fast release cycles help us to provide optimal HPC/AI clusters for our customers.

"With the HPC and AI SIG we want to make it even easier for users to deploy HPC/AI resources based on state-of-the-art open source technologies."