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Summary This paper describes efficient algorithms for computing rank‐revealing factorizations of matrices that are too large to fit in main memory (RAM), and must instead be stored on slow external memory devices such as disks (out‐of‐core or out‐of‐memory). Traditional algorithms for computing rank‐revealing factorizations (such as the column pivoted QR factorization and the singular value decomposition) are very communication intensive as they require many vector‐vector and matrix‐vector operations, which become prohibitively expensive when data is not in RAM. Randomization allows to reformulate new methods so that large contiguous blocks of the matrix are processed in bulk. The paper describes two distinct methods. The first is a blocked version of column pivoted Householder QR, organized as a “left‐looking” method to minimize the number of the expensive write operations. The second method results employs a UTV factorization. It is organized as an algorithm‐by‐blocks to overlap computations and I/O operations. As it incorporates power iterations, it is much better at revealing the numerical rank. Numerical experiments on several computers demonstrate that the new algorithms are almost as fast when processing data stored on slow memory devices as traditional algorithms are for data stored in RAM. 

This survey describes probabilistic algorithms for linear algebraic computations, such as factorizing matrices and solving linear systems. It focuses on techniques that have a proven track record for real-world problems. The paper treats both the theoretical foundations of the subject and practical computational issues. Topics include norm estimation, matrix approximation by sampling, structured and unstructured random embeddings, linear regression problems, low-rank approximation, subspace iteration and Krylov methods, error estimation and adaptivity, interpolatory and CUR factorizations, Nyström approximation of positive semidefinite matrices, single-view (‘streaming’) algorithms, full rank-revealing factorizations, solvers for linear systems, and approximation of kernel matrices that arise in machine learning and in scientific computing.