ScaDL 2021: Third IPDPS Workshop on Scalable Deep Learning over Parallel and Distributed Infrastructure
https://2021.scadl.org

Scope of the Workshop
Recently, Deep Learning (DL) has received tremendous attention in the research community because of the impressive results obtained for a large number of machine learning problems. The success of state-of-the-art deep learning systems relies on training deep neural networks over a massive amount of training data, which typically requires a large-scale distributed computing infrastructure to run. In order to run these jobs in a scalable and efficient manner, on cloud infrastructure or dedicated HPC systems, several interesting research topics have emerged which are specific to DL. The sheer size and complexity of deep learning models when trained over a large amount of data makes them harder to converge in a reasonable amount of time. It demands advancement along multiple research directions such as, model/data parallelism, model/data compression, distributed optimization algorithms for DL convergence, synchronization strategies, efficient communication and specific hardware acceleration.

SCADL seeks to advance the following research directions:
* Asynchronous and Communication-Efficient SGD: Stochastic gradient descent is at the core of large-scale machine learning. Parallelizing SGD gradient computation across multiple nodes increases the data processed per iteration, but exposes the SGD to communication and synchronization delays and unpredictable node failures in the system. Thus, there is a critical need to design robust and scalable distributed SGD methods to achieve fast error-convergence in spite of such system variabilities.

* High performance computing aspects: Deep learning is highly compute intensive. Algorithms for kernel computations on commonly used accelerators (e.g. GPUs), efficient techniques for communicating gradients and loading data from storage are critical for training performance.

*Model and Gradient Compression Techniques: Techniques such as reducing weights and the size of weight tensors help in reducing the compute complexity. Using lower-bit representations allow for more optimal use of memory and communication bandwidth.

This intersection of distributed/parallel computing and deep learning is becoming critical and demands specific attention to address the above topics which some of the broader forums may not be able to provide. The aim of this workshop is to foster collaboration among researchers from distributed/parallel computing and deep learning communities to share the relevant topics as well as results of the current approaches lying at the intersection of these areas.

Areas of Interest
In this workshop, we solicit research papers focused on distributed deep learning aiming to achieve efficiency and scalability for deep learning jobs over distributed and parallel systems. Papers focusing both on algorithms as well as systems are welcome. We invite authors to submit papers on topics including but not limited to:

Deep learning on cloud platforms, HPC systems, and edge devices
- Model-parallel and data-parallel techniques
- Asynchronous SGD for Training DNNs
- Communication-Efficient Training of DNNs
- Scalable and distributed graph neural networks Sampling techniques for graph neural networks
- Federated deep learning, both horizontal and vertical, and its challenges
- Model/data/gradient compression
- Learning in Resource constrained environments
- Coding Techniques for Straggler Mitigation
- Elasticity for deep learning jobs/spot market enablement
- Hyper-parameter tuning for deep learning jobs
- Hardware Acceleration for Deep Learning
- Scalability of deep learning jobs on large clusters
- Deep learning on heterogeneous infrastructure
- Efficient and Scalable Inference
- Data storage/access in shared networks for deep learning

Format
Due to the continuing impact of COVID-19, ScaDL 2021 will also adopt relevant IPDPS 2021 policies on virtual participation and presentation. Consequently, the organizers are currently planning a hybrid (in-person and virtual) event.

Key Dates
Paper Submission: February 21, 2021
Acceptance Notification: March 22, 2021
Camera-ready due: April 05, 2021
Workshop: May 21, 2021

Author Instructions
ScaDL 2021 accepts submissions in three categories:
- Regular papers: 8-10 pages
- Short papers: 4 pages
- Extended abstracts: 1 page
The aforementioned lengths include all technical content, references and appendices.
Papers should be formatted using IEEE conference style, including figures, tables, and references. The IEEE conference style templates for MS Word and LaTeX provided by IEEE eXpress Conference Publishing are available for download. See the latest versions at https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html

General Chairs
Parijat Dube, IBM Research, USA
Stacy Patterson, RPI, USA

Program Committee Chairs
Danilo Ardagna, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Yogish Sabharwal, IBM Research, India

Logistics & Web Chair
Jayaram K. R., IBM Research, USA

Publicity Chairs
Anirban Das, RPI, USA
Federica Filippini, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Program Committee
See the workshop website https://2021.scadl.org

Steering Committee
Vinod Muthusamy, IBM Research, USA
Ashish Verma, IBM Research, USA