An open communication framework is an essential enabler of Co-Design, opening the opportunity for innovation and development of heterogeneous co-processing elements working together synergistically and seamlessly to achieve a robust and capable ecosystem for exascale computing and beyond. The emergence of many-core processing architectures, custom FPGA processing elements, interconnect intelligence, and data-aware storage are just some of the key technologies that depend on the ability to effectively communicate within such a framework to realize the potential of their capabilities.