arXiv AI

Racer: Hunting GPU Kernel Bugs with Symbolic Equivalence Checking

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 22

Measuring the Checker: Mutation Analysis for GPU-Kernel Benchmark Oracles

The paper introduces mutation analysis as a metric for evaluating GPU‑kernel benchmark oracles, injecting over ten thousand faults into verified CUDA implementations of 188 KernelBench problems. It shows that the current official checkers miss 16.9% of faults, with precision faults being especially problematic, and demonstrates that optimized test suites can achieve 98% detection with only two inputs per problem. The study also reveals flaws in existing patches and a fuzzing recipe that incorrectly rejects correct kernels 107 times.

By Mingzhe Du, Anh Tuan Luu, Dong Huang, See-Kiong Ng
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 24

AsmEvo: Agentic Assembly-Level Optimization of AMD GPU Kernels with Functional Equivalence Verification

AsmEvo is an agentic assembly-level optimizer that targets compiled AMDGPU code objects, reconstructing a reassemblable representation and applying low-level edits guided by a long-horizon agent. It rebuilds ABI-preserving optimized objects and verifies functional equivalence through differential testing against the original binary. Experiments show significant speedups—up to 1.35× geometric mean on MI308X and 1.18× on MI300X—while maintaining correctness.

By Ji Liu, Puyuan Yang, Rongzhang Zheng, Fan Wang, Jinglin Wang, Muhammad A. Awad, Mortis Huang, Andy Chang, Zekai Li, Zeping Li, Zihao An, Yue Liu, Yuchen Yang, Jianghui Wang, Chushi Chen, Ziqiong Liu, Fuwei Yang, Dong Li, Wen Heng Chung, Shengcai Liu, Emad Barsoum
arXiv AI
Oct 28

God Does Not Play Dice: Enforcing Batch Invariance in Agentic Kernel Generation

The paper introduces ool, a plug‑in for kernel generation agents that enforces batch invariance (BI) in GPU kernels used by large language model serving systems. By combining static dependency analysis with dynamic bitwise consistency checks, ool rejects kernels that are structurally risky or non‑invariant before performance benchmarking. Experiments on three agent frameworks show that ool raises the BI pass rate from 67.6 % to 91.9 % while preserving 91.8 % of the baseline speedup.

By Youwei Bao, Chengpeng Wang, Simin Chen
arXiv AI
Sep 30

AI as a Compiler: Compiling Triton kernels without the Triton compiler

The paper explores using large language models (LLMs) to replace traditional compiler backends, a process termed AI lowering. An LLM agent translates Triton kernels directly into NVIDIA PTX, achieving 0.83x–3.34x the performance of autotuned Triton on a variety of GPUs and ML kernels. The study also extends a PTX verifier to support modern GPU features, highlighting the potential for AI compilers to reduce engineering effort for new hardware.

By Fran\c{c}ois Costa, Charly Castes, Thomas Bourgeat, Azalia Mirhoseini
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 14

CAKE: Compiler-Agent Co-Design for Frontier Kernel Evolution

arXiv:2608. 12629v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: GPU kernel agents and GPU programming languages have advanced separately, leaving expert kernels difficult to reproduce.

By Zihao Ye, Yingyi Huang, Hongyi Jin, Bohan Hou, Junru Shao, Zhongming Yu, Jinqi Chen, Meghan Cowan, Shiyi Cao, Shanli Xing, Hanfeng Chen, Vinod Grover, Tianqi Chen, Luis Ceze
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 23

Accelerating the Mitigation of LLM Inference Nondeterminism Across GPU Architectures

The paper addresses the problem of non‑deterministic outputs from large language models (LLMs) when run on different GPU architectures, caused by floating‑point non‑associativity and hardware‑dependent kernel choices. It proposes a set of fixed‑configuration fused‑upcast GEMM kernels that load 16‑bit weights, upcast to FP32, and perform IEEE‑754 compliant reductions in a problem‑shape‑dependent order, ensuring identical linear‑layer outputs across NVIDIA Ampere, Ada, and Hopper GPUs. The new approach achieves 1.17–3.1× faster end‑to‑end performance than existing solutions and halves weight‑memory traffic while maintaining cross‑architecture reproducibility.

By Liam Cooper, Shinnung Jeong, Hyeran Jeon, Jeffrey Young, Hyesoon Kim
arXiv AI
Oct 16

Don't Regenerate, Debug: A Domain-Specific Agent for Repairing Near-Miss Accelerator Kernels

The paper introduces a domain‑specific debugging agent for repairing near‑miss accelerator kernels, arguing that debugging is more efficient than regenerating kernels from scratch. It tackles knowledge scarcity, integrity, and cost control through pattern retrieval, anti‑cheat detection, and convergence safeguards. Empirical results show the debug agent achieves a 66.7% Pass@1 rate and uses 92.8% fewer tokens per success compared to traditional regeneration methods.

By Yansong Sun, Shenxiu Wu, Siyuan Chen, Runlin Hou, Junhao Qiu, Junming Cao, Shudi Shao, Zhichao Lu, Qingfu Zhang
arXiv AI
Sep 7

When LLM Decompilers Recompile More and Preserve Less

The paper examines how large‑language‑model (LLM) decompilers, which produce clean, idiomatic C code, are currently evaluated mainly on recompilability and passing shipped tests. It shows that these metrics can mask significant behavioral differences: a decompiled function may recompile and pass all tests yet diverge on other inputs or lose disclosed vulnerabilities. To address this, the authors propose Decompile‑Diverge, a behavioral oracle that synthesizes drivers, fuzzes inputs, and compares the decompiled code’s behavior to the original, revealing divergences in up to 13% of cases and exposing gaps in current evaluation suites.

By Chang Liu, Edward Raff, Kristopher Micinski