Second course on porting code and algorithms to GPUs

30 Jun 2025, 10:00 → 4 Jul 2025, 12:00 Europe/Rome

Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia

Alexis Pompili (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Carlo Battilana (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Simone Gennai (MIB), Tommaso Diotalevi (Università e INFN, Bologna)

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This training focuses on parallel programming on GPUs. No fee is foreseen.

This event builds upon the first course on porting algorithms to heterogeneous architectures, which was organised in 2023. It expands its scope and covers selected topics in greater detail than the previous training.

The course is primarily intended for personnel hired through the ICSC project to work on projects and research activities within the framework of Spoke 2 (“Fundamental Research and Space Economy”); however, it is also open to anyone interested within the fundamental physics community, including, in particular, Ph.D. students and young post-docs.

Main lecturers: Andrea Bocci (CERN), Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

Facilitators for the hands-on sessions:  Simone Balducci and Aurora Perego.

Technical support: Daniele Spiga.

Additional activities are foreseen during the week. For example, a seminar, on the optimisation of XGBoost with Optuna by U.Sozbilir (University of Bari) is already planned.

Details on how to connect to the computing resources used for the training will be sent by email to the registered participants.

The meeting will be held in Bologna at the historic building housing the Physics and Astronomy Department, located at via Irnerio 46, 40126 Bologna (BO), Italy.

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Monday, 30 June

1 Welcome (info & logistics)

Speakers: Alexis Pompili (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Carlo Battilana (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Simone Gennai (MIB)

2 Lecture GPU (part 1)

Speaker: Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

16:15 Break

3 Lecture GPU (part 2)

Speaker: Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

18:00 Welcome drink

Tuesday, 1 July

4 Hands-on GPU

Speaker: Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

10:45 Coffee Break

5 Lecture GPU (part 3)

Speaker: Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

13:00 Lunch break

6 Introduction to performance portability with Alpaka (part 1)

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

16:15 Coffee break

7 Introduction to performance portability with Alpaka (part 2)

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

Wednesday, 2 July

8 Hands-on Alpaka

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

10:45 Coffee Break

9 Hands-on Alpaka

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

13:00 Lunch break

10 Consolidation (more exercises or specific use cases)

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

16:15 Coffee break

11 Consolidation (more exercises or specific use cases)

Speaker: Felice Pantaleo (CERN)

12 Social dinner

(On each own funds but all together in a pre-booked good restaurant)

Thursday, 3 July

13 Lecture: Hyperparameter optimization with OPTUNA

Speaker: Dr Ümit Sözbilir

11:00 Coffee break

14 Hands-on: optimization in OPTUNA

Speaker: Dr Ümit Sözbilir

13:00 Lunch break

15 Consolidation (more exercises or specific use cases)

Speaker: Dr Andrea Bocci (CERN)

16:30 Coffee break

16 Consolidation (more exercises or specific use cases)

Friday, 4 July

17 More consolidation (on specific use cases)

11:00 Break

18 Wrap-up and closeout