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@MISC{Villamar:1044145,
author = {Villamar, Jose and Sergi, Luca and Tiddia, Gianmarco and
Babu, Pooja and Pontisso, Luca and Simula, Francesco and
Lonardo, Alessandro and Pastorelli, Elena and Paolucci, Pier
Stanislao and Golosio, Bruno and Senk, Johanna},
title = {{E}fficient simulations of spiking neural networks using
{NEST} {GPU}},
reportid = {FZJ-2025-03047},
year = {2025},
abstract = {Efficient simulation of large-scale spiking neuronal
networks is important for neuroscientific research, and both
the simulation speed and the time it takes to instantiate
the network in computer memory are key factors. In recent
years, hardware acceleration through highly parallel GPUs
has become increasingly popular. NEST GPU is a GPU-based
simulator under the NEST Initiative written in CUDA-C++ that
demonstrates high simulation speeds with models of various
network sizes on single-GPU and multi-GPU systems
[1,2,3].Using a single NVIDIA RTX4090 GPU we have simulated
networks on the magnitude of 80 thousand neurons and 200
million synapses with a real time factor of 0.4; and using
12000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs on the LEONARDO cluster we have
managed to simulate networks on the magnitude of 3.3 billion
neurons and 37 trillion synapses with a real time factor of
20.In this showcase, we will demonstrate the capabilities of
the GPU simulator and present our roadmap to integrate this
technology into the ecosystem of the CPU-based simulator
NEST [4].For this, we will focus on three aspects of the
simulation across model scales, namely network construction
speed, state propagation speed, and energy
efficiency.Furthermore, we will present our efforts to
statistically validate our simulation results against those
of NEST (CPU) using established network models.Additionally,
we will also present NESTML [5], a domain-specific modeling
language to create new neuron models and automatically
generate code for the NEST GPU backend.Lastly, the current
state of the technology in terms of available features and
interfaces will be shown as well as the roadmap for full
integration to the NEST ecosystem.[1] Golosio et al. Front.
Comput. Neurosci. 15:627620, 2021.[2] Tiddia et al. Front.
Neuroinform. 16:883333, 2022.[3] Golosio et al. Appl. Sci.
13, 9598, 2023.[4] Graber, S., et al. NEST 3.8 (3.8).
Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.12624784[5]
https://nestml.readthedocs.io/},
month = {Jul},
date = {2025-07-05},
organization = {34th Annual Computational Neuroscience
Meeting, Florence (Italy), 5 Jul 2025 -
5 Jul 2025},
subtyp = {After Call},
cin = {IAS-6 / JSC},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IAS-6-20130828 / I:(DE-Juel1)JSC-20090406},
pnm = {5232 - Computational Principles (POF4-523) / 5235 -
Digitization of Neuroscience and User-Community Building
(POF4-523) / HiRSE - Helmholtz Platform for Research
Software Engineering (HiRSE-20250220) / JL SMHB - Joint Lab
Supercomputing and Modeling for the Human Brain (JL
SMHB-2021-2027)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5232 / G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5235 /
G:(DE-Juel-1)HiRSE-20250220 / G:(DE-Juel1)JL SMHB-2021-2027},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)17},
doi = {10.34734/FZJ-2025-03047},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1044145},
}