OpenMP is a portable programming model that allows for parallel programming on shared memory architectures. It utilizes multithreading and shared memory to parallelize serial programs. OpenMP uses compiler directives, runtime libraries, and environment variables to parallelize loops and sections of code. It uses a fork-join model where the master thread forks additional threads to run portions of the program concurrently using shared memory. OpenMP provides a way to incrementally parallelize programs and is supported across many platforms.