ICL Research Profile

Basic ALgebra LIbraries for Sustainable Technology with Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Overview

Basic ALgebra LIbraries for Sustainable Technology with Interdisciplinary Collaboration (BALLISTIC) is an NSF-funded multiyear effort to create new software components capable of running at every level of the hardware pyramid by delivering seamless access to the most up-to-date algorithms, numerics, and performance via familiar Linear Algebra PACKage (LAPACK) and Scalable Linear Algebra PACKage (ScaLAPACK) interfaces. BALLISTIC makes advanced algorithms, numerics, and performance capabilities available through new interface extensions; and by providing a well-engineered conduit for channeling new developments to science and engineering applications that depend on high-performance and high-quality linear algebra libraries.

Scientific software libraries have long provided a large and growing resource for high-quality, reusable software components upon which applications from science and engineering can be rapidly constructed. The BALLISTIC project introduces tools that will simplify the transition to the next generation of extreme-scale computer architecture through the leading-edge research it channels into its software deliverables. The benefiting libraries include Netlib’s reference implementations of both BLAS and LAPACK that inform downstream derivatives optimized for specific hardware platforms. Also included in BALLISTIC developments were MAGMA, PLASMA, and SLATE software libraries.