Accelerating Machine Learning via Multi-Objective Optimization

This dissertation work presents various approaches toward accelerating training of deep neural networks with the use of high-performance computing resources, while balancing learning and systems utilization objectives. Acceleration of machine learning is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem that seeks to satisfy multiple objectives, based on its respective constraints. In machine learning, the objective is to strive for a model that has high accuracy, while eliminating false positives and generalizing beyond the training set. For systems execution performance, maximizing utilization of the underlying hardware resources within compute and power budgets are constraints that bound the problem. In both scenarios, the search space is combinatorial and contains multiple local minima that in many cases satisfies the global optimum. This dissertation work addresses the search of solutions in both performance tuning and neural network training. Specifically, subgraph matching is proposed to bound the search problem and provide heuristics that guide the solver toward the optimal solution. Mixed precision operations is also proposed for solving systems of linear equations and for training neural networks for image classification for evaluating the stability and robustness of the operations. Use cases are presented with CUDA performance tuning and neural network training, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed technique. The experiments were carried out on single and multi-node GPU clusters, and reveals opportunities for further exploration in this critical hardware/software co-design space of accelerated machine learning