Nvidia makes CUDA source code public

Nvidia has announced that it will provide the source code for the new “CUDA LLVM-based” compiler to groups such as academic researchers and software-tool vendors which will enable them to more easily add GPU support for more programming languages and support CUDA applications on alternative processor architectures.

LLVM is a widely used open source compiler infrastructure with a modular design that makes it easy to add support for new programming languages and processor architectures. It is used for a range of programming requirements by many leading companies, including Adobe, Apple, Cray, Electronic Arts, and others. Nvidia will be including the new LLVM CUDA compiler in the CUDA toolkit version 4.1.

“Opening up the CUDA platform is a significant step,” said Sudhakar Yalamanchili, professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead of the Ocelot project, which maps software written in CUDA C to different processor architectures. “The future of computing is heterogeneous, and the CUDA programming model provides a powerful way to maximize performance on many different types of processors, including AMD GPUs and Intel x86 CPUs.”

Nvidia hopes that opening up its platform to the public will allow alternative approaches to programming heterogeneous parallel systems for domain-specific problems and give future programming models help with accelerating exascale computing development.

“This initiative enables PGI to create native CUDA Fortran and OpenACC compilers that leverage the same device-level optimization technology used by Nvidia CUDA C/C++,” said Doug Miles, director of The Portland Group. “It will enable seamless debugging and profiling using existing tools, and allow PGI to focus on higher-level optimizations and language features.”

We already know the public can access the LLVM CUDA compiler in the CUDA toolkit but to access the actual source code itself you must be appropriately qualified:

Interested in early access to the CUDA compiler source code? It’s available here if you are qualified academic researcher or software developer.

Source: Press Release