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1. Communication Lower Bounds for Matricized Tensor Times Khatri-Rao Product

   https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2018.00065  

   Ballard, Grey; Knight, Nicholas; Rouse, Kathryn (May 2018, 2018 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium)

   The matricized-tensor times Khatri-Rao product (MTTKRP) computation is the typical bottleneck in algorithms for computing a CP decomposition of a tensor. In order to develop high performance sequential and parallel algorithms, we establish communication lower bounds that identify how much data movement is required for this computation in the case of dense tensors. We also present sequential and parallel algorithms that attain the lower bounds and are therefore communication optimal. In particular, we show that the structure of the computation allows for less communication than the straightforward approach of casting the computation as a matrix multiplication operation. 

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2. General Memory-Independent Lower Bound for MTTKRP

   https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611976137.1  

   Ballard, Grey; Rouse, Kathryn (January 2020, SIAM Conference on Parallel Processing for Scientific Computing)

   Our goal is to establish lower bounds on the communication required to perform the Matricized-Tensor Times Khatri-Rao Product (MTTKRP) computation on a distributed-memory parallel machine. MTTKRP is the bottleneck computation within algorithms for computing the CP tensor decomposition, which is an approximation by a sum of rank-one tensors and frequently used in multidimensional data analysis. The main result of this paper is a communication lower bound that generalizes previous results, tightening the bound so that it is attainable even when the tensor dimensions vary (the tensor is not cubical) and when the number of processors is small relative to the tensor dimensions. The attainability of the bound proves that the algorithm that attains it, which is based on a block distribution of the tensor and communicating only factor matrices, is communication optimal. The proof technique utilizes an established inequality that relates computations to data access as well as a novel approach based on convex optimization. 

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3. Parallel Nonnegative CP Decomposition of Dense Tensors

   https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPC.2018.00012  

   Ballard, Grey; Hayashi, Koby; Ramakrishnan, Kannan (December 2018, 25th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing)

   The CP tensor decomposition is a low-rank approximation of a tensor. We present a distributed-memory parallel algorithm and implementation of an alternating optimization method for computing a CP decomposition of dense tensors that can enforce nonnegativity of the computed low-rank factors. The principal task is to parallelize the Matricized-Tensor Times Khatri-Rao Product (MTTKRP) bottleneck subcomputation. The algorithm is computation efficient, using dimension trees to avoid redundant computation across MTTKRPs within the alternating method. Our approach is also communication efficient, using a data distribution and parallel algorithm across a multidimensional processor grid that can be tuned to minimize communication. We benchmark our software on synthetic as well as hyperspectral image and neuroscience dynamic functional connectivity data, demonstrating that our algorithm scales well to 100s of nodes (up to 4096 cores) and is faster and more general than the currently available parallel software. 

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4. Parallel Memory-Independent Communication Bounds for SYRK

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3558481.3591072  

   Al Daas, Hussam; Ballard, Grey; Grigori, Laura; Kumar, Suraj; Rouse, Kathryn (June 2023, Proceedings of the 35th ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures)

   In this paper, we focus on the parallel communication cost of multiplying a matrix with its transpose, known as a symmetric rank-k update (SYRK). SYRK requires half the computation of general matrix multiplication because of the symmetry of the output matrix. Recent work (Beaumont et al., SPAA '22) has demonstrated that the sequential I/O complexity of SYRK is also a constant factor smaller than that of general matrix multiplication. Inspired by this progress, we establish memory-independent parallel communication lower bounds for SYRK with smaller constants than general matrix multiplication, and we show that these constants are tight by presenting communication-optimal algorithms. The crux of the lower bound proof relies on extending a key geometric inequality to symmetric computations and analytically solving a constrained nonlinear optimization problem. The optimal algorithms use a triangular blocking scheme for parallel distribution of the symmetric output matrix and corresponding computation. 

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5. On the Distributed Complexity of Large-Scale Graph Computations

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3460900  

   Pandurangan, Gopal; Robinson, Peter; Scquizzato, Michele (June 2021, ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing)

   null (Ed.)

   Motivated by the increasing need to understand the distributed algorithmic foundations of large-scale graph computations, we study some fundamental graph problems in a message-passing model for distributed computing where k ≥ 2 machines jointly perform computations on graphs with n nodes (typically, n >> k). The input graph is assumed to be initially randomly partitioned among the k machines, a common implementation in many real-world systems. Communication is point-to-point, and the goal is to minimize the number of communication rounds of the computation. Our main contribution is the General Lower Bound Theorem , a theorem that can be used to show non-trivial lower bounds on the round complexity of distributed large-scale data computations. This result is established via an information-theoretic approach that relates the round complexity to the minimal amount of information required by machines to solve the problem. Our approach is generic, and this theorem can be used in a “cookbook” fashion to show distributed lower bounds for several problems, including non-graph problems. We present two applications by showing (almost) tight lower bounds on the round complexity of two fundamental graph problems, namely, PageRank computation and triangle enumeration . These applications show that our approach can yield lower bounds for problems where the application of communication complexity techniques seems not obvious or gives weak bounds, including and especially under a stochastic partition of the input. We then present distributed algorithms for PageRank and triangle enumeration with a round complexity that (almost) matches the respective lower bounds; these algorithms exhibit a round complexity that scales superlinearly in k , improving significantly over previous results [Klauck et al., SODA 2015]. Specifically, we show the following results: PageRank: We show a lower bound of Ὼ(n/k 2 ) rounds and present a distributed algorithm that computes an approximation of the PageRank of all the nodes of a graph in Õ(n/k 2 ) rounds. Triangle enumeration: We show that there exist graphs with m edges where any distributed algorithm requires Ὼ(m/k 5/3 ) rounds. This result also implies the first non-trivial lower bound of Ὼ(n 1/3 ) rounds for the congested clique model, which is tight up to logarithmic factors. We then present a distributed algorithm that enumerates all the triangles of a graph in Õ(m/k 5/3 + n/k 4/3 ) rounds. 

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