I don't think CUDA vs OpenCL is the real issue. It's the libraries that come with them. It matters little in which language they were written, since they are closed source for the most part.
AMD's Boltzmann initiative won't solve the lack of libraries.
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Would you mind trying the AMD compiler? http://gpuopen.com/compute-product/hip-convert-cuda-to-porta... I'd be interested in seeing a benchmark between some original cuda code and the opencl output of this compiler on the same gpu.
It doesn't look like AMD's HIP effort compiles to OpenCL, but to C++, that works on specific AMD GPUs (Fiji R9 Fury X, R9 Fury, R9 Nano).
Also, much of the speed gains for ML on NVidia hardware come from CuDNN - there is no equivalent for OpenCL or AMD hardware
I don't think CUDA vs OpenCL is the real issue. It's the libraries that come with them. It matters little in which language they were written, since they are closed source for the most part.
AMD's Boltzmann initiative won't solve the lack of libraries.