Nvidia open sources cuFile API, accelerating GPU read/write capability for high-speed storage
As artificial intelligence applications become ever hungrier for faster access to data, Nvidia Corp. today announced it is open-sourcing the application programming interface for its powerful cuFile vertical data storage stack, enabling millisecond data access.
The company also announced a large-scale industry initiative with technology leaders in optimizing memory and storage solutions with Storage-Next. The initiative aims to bring storage makers, controller vendors, thermal design, cooling, and orchestration providers together with standard bodies to find opportunities for superior graphics processing unit-driven storage.
During Nvidia’s announcement at the Future of Memory and Storage conference, the company said the cuFile API enables secure access from storage in just milliseconds.
CuFile was first officially launched into general availability in July 2021 alongside the company’s GPU access CUDA Toolkit 11.4. Prior to the launch, it acted as a core component of the company’s GPUDirect Storage software. It provides direct, high-speed data access between local distributed storage and GPU memory; this allows GPUs to bypass the central processing unit and system main memory, which greatly reduces memory access delays.
