World's Fair 2025
Luminal - Search-Based Deep Learning Compilers - Joe Fioti
Overview
Luminal is a deep learning library that aims for radical simplification through search-based compilation. Instead of the complex, multi-million line codebases of traditional libraries like PyTorch, Luminal represents models as simple directed acyclic graphs of a minimal set of core operations. This simplified representation allows for a compiler that uses search to discover highly optimized kernels, including complex ones like FlashAttention, which were previously difficult to implement.
Who should watch
- AI engineers and builders looking for simpler ML library alternatives.
- Developers frustrated with the complexity and dependency hell of existing ML stacks.
- Researchers and engineers interested in novel compilation techniques for deep learning.
- Those working with diverse hardware who seek broader compatibility.
- Teams aiming to accelerate reinforcement learning workflows.
Key takeaways
- Traditional ML libraries are excessively complex due to supporting numerous operations, data types, and devices multiplicatively.
- Luminal simplifies models by representing them using only 12 fundamental operations, which can compose all commercially relevant models.
- The library uses a compiler that employs search, inspired by AlphaGo's approach, to explore a vast space of logically equivalent GPU kernels and find optimal ones.
- This search-based compilation enables Luminal to discover complex optimizations like FlashAttention automatically, a feat previously requiring years of manual development.
- Luminal compiles directly to CUDA, minimizing the software stack and reducing dependency issues common in other frameworks.
- The framework supports training through an external autograd engine, offering training capabilities without core library modifications.
- Future plans include expanding hardware support to AMD, TensorRT, Grok, and TPUs, alongside developing distributed inference and training, and optimizing RL environments on the GPU.
Notable quotes
*The title of the talk is radical simplification through search. And that really is the theme of Luminal.*
*We are far simpler than most other ML libraries. And yet we are not taking a hit on performance or capability because we are using compilers and more specifically search.*
*So what we do is we take the approach of looking top down at machine learning and then saying fundamentally what are the minimum amount of things we need in order to make ML models run.*
Unofficial community note. Prefer the recording for nuance.