NASA GPU Hackathon 2024

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in Partnership with the Department of Energy, NVIDIA, and the OpenACC Organization

Join Us at The NASA GPU Hackathon

If you have an application relevant to NASA missions and you’re thinking about porting to GPUs, or if your NASA application is already using GPUs and you could use help getting to that next level of performance, consider applying to participate in the NASA GPU Hackathon. Whether your code is a traditional HPC-centric application or if your goal focuses on AI/ML technologies, please apply!

What is a GPU hackathon?

A GPU hackathon is typically a multi-day intensive coding event that puts application teams together with experts in programming and code performance. The goal of the event is to port and optimize codes on GPU technologies in a focused, highly collaborative environment. This year we will be offering several pre-hackathon training opportunities; please see below for further details.

| What is the Format?

Each code team should consist of three to five developers who have deep knowledge of the code. If your team’s proposal consists of a suite of applications, no more than two applications should be sent to the hackathon. If the subject code(s) is large and/or complex, your team is encouraged to create a mini-app version that encompasses the component of the code to be optimized. For each individual code, at least three people must attend. Teams will be complemented by mentors who will be assigned based on expert knowledge aligned with the motifs of the code.

Selected teams will have access to GPU nodes available on NASA's Cabeus system (and possibly external systems). Access will also include pre- and post-hackathon periods to facilitate preparation for the event, as well as follow-up testing.

Approximately ten teams will be selected across both HPC and AI/ML technologies from a review process. A review committee will include local NASA organizers, NVIDIA, and experts from other national labs. Multiple criteria will be factored into the selection process:

  • Core developers available (minimum of 3)
  • Clear goals
  • Impact/role of application
  • Motifs/workloads amenable to GPUs
  • Access to code (such as software usage agreement in place before the event)
  • Relative benefit to NASA

| Who Should Apply?

Teams with scientific and/or AI/ML applications relevant to NASA missions seeking performance improvements or who are interested in porting to GPU systems in a cooperative, hands-on environment should apply. Teams may use any common method of offloading work to the GPUs, including CUDA, directive-based approaches such as OpenACC or OpenMP, or third-party abstractions such as Kokkos—among others. This Hackathon is for teams based in the United States, only.

| Participant Costs

There is no registration fee to attend this virtual event.

| How to Apply

We plan to accept about 10 teams for this event. You can apply by filling out the form on the Open Hackathons Event website.

Hackathon Applications are due by June 16, 2024.

| Pre-Event Training Information

To be prepared to gain full advantage of participation in this year's hackathon, the following resources are available for your use. Please take the time to review each module in order, as it will be beneficial for your successful learning experience.

Please direct questions about these resources to: nasa-hackathon@nas.nasa.gov.

| Important Dates

Interested teams, please note these important dates:

  • May 21, 2024 – Deadline to apply for the NASA End-to-End LLM Bootcamp
  • June 16, 2024 – Deadline to apply for Hackathon
  • June 05–June 07, 2024 – NASA End-to-End LLM Bootcamp
  • September 03, 2024 – Team/Mentor Meeting, Day 0
  • September 10, 2024 – NASA GPU Hackathon, Day 1
  • September 17–19, 2024 – NASA GPU Hackathon, Days 2-4

NASA GPU Hackathon 2024 Success Stories

During this year’s virtual event, 34 members representing 8 teams from two NASA centers (Ames and Goddard) and academic institutions brought a variety of computational fluid dynamics and artificial intelligence/machine learning applications and applied several GPU acceleration techniques to speed up code performance. Using optimization techniques and performance tools, most of the teams improved their application performance from 40% up to 250X.
NASA GPU Hackathon 2024 Summary (PDF, 1.2MB)

NASA GPU Hackathon 2023 Success Stories

During the highly successful virtual event, 56 members representing 9 teams from three NASA centers (ARC, GSFC, Langley), various academic institutions, and industry brought a variety of computationally intensive applications and applied high-performance computing and machine-learning techniques to speed up code performance. Most teams achieved considerable performance improvements on both GPUs and CPUs.
NASA GPU Hackathon 2023 Summary (PDF, 1.7MB)

NASA GPU Hackathon 2022 Success Stories

During this year’s virtual event, teams made good progress and achieved considerable performance improvements on both GPUs and CPUs. Thirty-six 36 members representing eight teams from three NASA centers (ARC, GSFC, JPL) and academic institutions brought a variety of computationally intensive applications and applied high-performance computing and machine-learning techniques to speed up code performance.
NASA GPU Hackathon 2022 Summary (PDF, 3.2MB)

NASA GPU Hackathon 2021 Success Stories

The second annual NASA GPU Hackathon was highly successful, with 51 participants across ten teams from four NASA Centers and the Department of Defense reported extensive learning and progress in GPU implementations and optimizations. Most teams realized substantial speedups in their applications.
Project Summary Quad Charts (PDF, 568KB)

NASA GPU Hackathon 2020 Success Stories

During this successful online event, which focused on Aerosciences and CFD applications, most teams achieved considerable performance improvements on both GPUs and CPUs. Read more about the projects and results in this report:
NASA GPU Hackathon Yields Significant Code Improvements (PDF, 710KB)