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anvl

Package website: release | dev

Accelerated array computing and code transformations for R, allowing you to run numerical programs at the speed of light. The package supports JIT compilation for very fast execution and reverse-mode automatic differentiation. Programs can run on CPU and NVIDIA GPU.

Installation 

install.packages("anvl", repos = c("https://r-xla.r-universe.dev", getOption("repos")))

Install CUDA support on linux amd64:

install.packages("cuda12.8", repos = "https://mlverse.r-universe.dev")

See the Installation guide for more details, including prebuilt Docker images.

Why anvl

anvl makes numerical R code run fast on CPUs and GPUs, and computes gradients of your functions automatically. It aspires to be for R what JAX is for Python.

There are three core ideas:

  • Compilation. {anvl} converts R functions into an optimized program via XLA – the same compiler that powers JAX and TensorFlow. Due to the compilation, resulting programs can be faster compared to implementing them in {torch}.
  • Function transformation. Programmatically derive new functions from existing ones. Currently the only available transformation is reverse-mode automatic differentiation via gradient(), which returns the derivative of a function as another R function.
  • Hardware portability. The same code runs on CPU or GPU.

Moreover, the package is designed to be extensible. As the package is written in R, new primitives and transformations can be added without needing a lower-level language.

Usage

We define an R function operating on AnvlArrays – the primary data type of {anvl}. It can be executed in either eager mode (each operation is performed immediately) or jit mode (the whole function is compiled into a single executable via jit()).

library(anvl)
f <- function(a, b, x) {
  a * x + b
}

a <- nv_scalar(1.0, "f32")
b <- nv_scalar(-2.0, "f32")
x <- nv_scalar(3.0, "f32")

# Eager mode
f(a, b, x)
#> AnvlArray
#>  1
#> [ CPUf32{} ]

# JIT mode
f_jit <- jit(f)
f_jit(a, b, x)
#> AnvlArray
#>  1
#> [ CPUf32{} ]

Through automatic differentiation, we can also obtain the gradient of the above function.

g_jit <- jit(gradient(f, wrt = c("a", "b")))
g_jit(a, b, x)
#> $a
#> AnvlArray
#>  3
#> [ CPUf32{} ] 
#> 
#> $b
#> AnvlArray
#>  1
#> [ CPUf32{} ]

For more complex examples, such as implementing a Gaussian Process, see the package website.

Platform Support

Platform CPU GPU
Linux (x86_64) ✓ ✓ CUDA
Linux (ARM) ✓ ✗
Windows ✓ ◐ WSL2 only (CUDA)
macOS (Apple Silicon) ✓ ✗
macOS (Intel) ✗ ✗

✓ fully supported  ·  ◐ limited support  ·  ✗ not supported

Acknowledgments

  • This work is supported by MaRDI.
  • The design of this package was inspired by and borrows from:
  • For JIT compilation, we leverage the OpenXLA project.