Project Sumatra

This primary goal of this project is to enable Java applications to take advantage of graphics processing units (GPUs) and accelerated processing units (APUs)--whether they are discrete devices or integrated with a CPU--to improve performance.

We expect the initial focus to be on the Hotspot JVM, enabling code generation, runtime support and garbage collection on GPUs. Once basic capabilities are in place in the JVM, we will also examine how to best expose GPU support to application and/or library developers, initially leveraging the new Java 8 Lambda language and library features. As the project progress, we may identify challenges with the Java API and constructs which may lead to new language, JVM or library extensions that will need standardization under the JCP process. While the Java language is an obvious focus, we also anticipate that this project will provide guidance for other JVM-hosted languages such as JavaScript/Nashorn, Scala and JRuby.

You can follow the project and get involved on the sumatra-dev mailing list.

Related projects and material

• Aparapi - API for data parallel Java
• Rootbeer - a compiler that makes it easier to program GPUs with Java
• Arrays 2.0 - a JVM Language Summit talk by John Rose

This Project is sponsored by the HotSpot Group.