In a blog post dated for 28 May that was only made public on Friday night followed by a new ROCm build tag, AMD engineers have begun sharing more details publicly about changes coming for ROCm 7.0. In particular, the HIP 7.0 interface is going to be " aligning HIP C++ even more closely with CUDA ."

As the first public talk we are hearing about HIP 7.0 that will come in-step presumably with the ROCm 7.0 release (currently at ROCm 6.4.1), there are going to be some breaking changes that will require a software rebuild but they are working to better jive this compatibility interface with NVIDIA CUDA.

The blog post also confirms HIP 7.0 and therefore ROCm 7.0 should be out in the second half of 2025. This is expected andn ot really surprising with how the ROCm release cycle has played out over the years.

"With the upcoming HIP 7.0 release in second half of 2025, we’re taking a bold step toward simplifying cross-platform programming by aligning HIP C++ even more closely with CUDA. AMD tightly integrates our automatic HIPIFY conversion tool with our HIP runtime and compiler. Users can quickly port CUDA code into HIP C++ with HIPIFY to target AMD GPUs. However, small differences between our implementation of the HIP C++ programming model and CUDA C++ often require manual intervention to adjust your code base. This causes additional work for software developers targeting GPU families from both providers. We understand this and are making changes to ROCm to reduce this friction based on customer requests. We also know adopting changes in our programming model requires early notification. We don’t take API breaking changes lightly and for your benefit, we are making an early prototype available to assist in porting to the new HIP 7.0 API."

HIP 7.0 may require code changes depending upon your application and thus they are proactively reaching out to developers for testing and modifying their code in advance. They have published a new ROCm build still based on ROCm 6.4 but with HIP 7.0 API changes.

"HIP 7.0 is designed to enhance GPU code portability and simplify cross-vendor GPU development. By aligning HIP more closely with CUDA semantics, refining error handling, and streamlining header structures, the HIP 7.0 release reduces the effort needed to maintain portable codebases. This blog outlines the key updates and provides guidance to help developers prepare their code for HIP 7.0. You are encouraged to begin testing with the HIP 7.0 preview to ensure a seamless transition and smooth upgrade path when we go live later during the second half of 2025."

More details on the HIP 7.0 changes coming via [1]rocm.blogs.amd.com .

Tagged on Friday night via the ROCm GitHub repository was also [2]rocm-6.4.0-with-7.0-preview for that ROCm 6.4 build that includes HIP 7.0 breaking API changes for early testing by developers. It will be interesting to see what more is included as part of ROCm 7.0. Presumably -- and given their recent communications on X/Twitter -- AMD will be talking more about ROCm 7.0 at [3]their upcoming Advancing AI event in June .



[1] https://rocm.blogs.amd.com/ecosystems-and-partners/transition-to-hip-7.0%3A-guidance-on-upcoming-compatibility-changes/README.html

[2] https://github.com/ROCm/hip/releases/tag/rocm-6.4.0-with-7.0-preview

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-ROCm-June-2025-Announcement