18.337/6.7320: Parallel Computing, Scientific Machine Learning, and Modern Agentic Modelling (Spring 2026)
Canvas will only be used for homework and project (+proposal) submission
Note for 2026: We have a much higher enrollment than we have had in the past. The below will have to
be modified if the enrollment remains this high.
Below is what appeared in the 2023 class.
We may not be able to get as many computing resources for everyone.
Math does not usually have the same resources as Course 6, so we may not have as much TA support as we would
hope to have.
Really nice Julia tutorial for the fall 2022 class Tutorial
Julia tutorial by Steven Johnson Fri Feb 6, 2026 Room 34-101 Optional Julia Tutorial: Fri Feb 6 5-7pm Room 34-101
Virtually via Zoom. Recording will be posted.
A basic overview of the Julia programming environment for numerical computations that we will use in 18.06 for simple computational exploration. This (Zoom-based) tutorial will cover what Julia is and the basics of interaction, scalar/vector/matrix arithmetic, and plotting — we'll be using it as just a "fancy calculator" and no "real programming" will be required.
- Tutorial materials (and links to other resources)
If possible, try to install Julia on your laptop beforehand using the instructions at the above link. Failing that, you can run Julia in the cloud (see instructions above).
Scientists and Engineers build physics-based models of the world. As manufacturing resurges in America, engineers are increasingly resorting to model based design. Physical AI is reinventing product design. This includes Scientific AI methods that combine models with data, model autocompletion that provides the missing physics, Agentic AI systems that build physics based models, and compilers and solvers that not only leverage automatic differentiation, but are also redesigned to provide introspection to agents.
Take a look at MIT Engaging and see what is there.
| # | Date | Day | Comments | who gives live lecture? | topic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2/2/2026 | Monday | Chris | Intro to SciML, PINNs | |
| 2 | 2/4/2026 | Wednesday | Chris | Forward mode automatic differentiation | |
| 3 | 2/9/2026 | Monday | Alan | Looking at Forward Mode in other ways | |
| 4 | 2/11/2026 | Wednesday | ORCD | Quiz 1 & MITs Engaging Supercomputing | |
| 2/16/2026 | Monday | Presidents' Day | |||
| 5 | 2/17/2026 | Tuesday | Monday Schedule | Chris | Reverse mode automatic differentiation |
| 6 | 2/18/2026 | Wednesday | Chris | Adjoint methods | |
| 7 | 2/23/2026 | Monday | Chris | Neural/Universal differential equations | |
| 8 | 2/25/2026 | Wednesday | Chris | Differential Algebraic Equations | |
| 9 | 3/2/2026 | Monday | Chris | Machine Learning with Conservation Laws | |
| 10 | 3/4/2026 | Wednesday | Chris | Make-up Day | |
| 11 | 3/9/2026 | Monday | Mike Tiller | ||
| 12 | 3/11/2026 | Wednesday | Mike Tiller | ||
| 13 | 3/16/2026 | Monday | Alan | Big Picture of Scientific Machine Learning | |
| 14 | 3/18/2026 | Wednesday | Alan | Introduction to HPC | |
| 3/23/2026 | Monday | Spring Break | |||
| 3/25/2026 | Wednesday | Spring Break | |||
| 15 | 3/30/2026 | Monday | Alan | Parallel Prefix [prefix spring 2026.pptx][prefixspring2026.jl] | |
| 16 | 4/1/2026 | Wednesday | Alan | Into to GPUS [gpus2026.pptx] | |
| 17 | 4/6/2026 | Monday | Alan | Optimizing Serial Code Types in Julia [7_ptypes.jl][html]Threading[handwritten notes][Serial Performance .jl][Loop Fusion Blog] | |
| 18 | 4/8/2026 | Wednesday | Evelyne Ringoot | Programming GPUs | |
| 19 | 4/13/2026 | Monday | Alan | Matrix Multiply and Memory Slides | |
| 20 | 4/15/2026 | Wednesday | Alan (and Julian remotely) | Dagger 1 Slides, Dagger 2 Slides | |
| 4/20/2026 | Monday | Patriots Day | |||
| 21 | 4/22/2026 | Wednesday | Tamiko Thiel | ||
| 22 | 4/27/2026 | Monday | Class | Final Project Presentations | |
| 23 | 4/29/2026 | Wednesday | Class | Final Project Presentations | |
| 24 | 5/4/2026 | Monday | Class | Final Project Presentations | |
| 25 | 5/6/2026 | Wednesday | Class | Final Project Presentations | |
| 26 | 5/11/2026 | Monday | Class | Final Project Presentations |
There will be homeworks, followed by the final project. Everyone needs to present their work and submit a project report.
1-page Final Project proposal due : just before Spring Break
Final Project presentations : we may have some done by video and some in class
Final Project reports due: May 11
25% problem sets (approximately every two weeks or fewer), 25% quizzes (planned for every second wednesday probably a total of five or six in number), 10% for the final project proposal, and 40% for the final project. Problem sets and final projects will be submitted electronically.
| # | HW | Due Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PINNs | 2/11/2026 |
| 2 | Performance etc | Thurs 3/5/2026 |
| 3 | Project Proposal & Adjoint Eqn | Friday 3/20/2026 |
| 4 | Threads & GPU | 4/24/2026 |
| # | Day | Date | Topic | SciML lecture | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M | 2/6 | Intro to Julia. My Two Favorite Notebooks. | [Julia is fast], [AutoDiff], [autodiff video], | |
| 2 | W | 2/8 | Matrix Calculus I and The Parallel Dream | See [IAP 2023 Class on Matrix Calculus],[handwritten notes],[The Parallel Dream] | |
| 3 | M | 2/13 | Matrix Calculus II | [handwritten notes],[Corgi in the Washing Machine],[2x2 Matrix Jacobians] | |
| 4 | W | 2/15 | Serial Performance | 2 | [handwritten notes], [Serial Performance .jl file], [Loop Fusion Blog ] |
| 5 | T | 2/21 | Intro to PINNs and Automatic differentiation I : Forward mode AD | 3 and 8 | ode and Pinns,intro to pinn handwritten notes,autodiff handwritten notes |
| 6 | W | 2/22 | Automatic differentiation II : Reverse mode AD | 10 | pinn.jl, reverse mode ad demo,handwritten notes |
| 7 | M | 2/27 | Dynamical Systems & Serial Performance on Iterations | 4 | Lorenz many ways, Dynamical Systems, handwriten notes |
| 8 | W | 3/1 | HPC & Threading | 5 and 6 | pi.jl, threads.jl,HPC Slides |
| 9 | M | 3/6 | Parallelism | Parallelism in Julia Slides,reduce/prefix notebook | |
| 10 | W | 3/8 | Prefix (and more) | ppt slides, reduce/prefix notebook,ThreadedScans.jl,cuda blog | |
| 11 | M | 3/13 | Adjoint Method Example | 10 | Handwritten Notes |
| 12 | W | 3/15 | Guest Lecture - Chris Rackauckas | ||
| 13 | M | 3/21 | Vectors, Operators and Adjoints | Handwritten Notes | |
| 14 | W | 3/23 | Adjoints of Linear, Nonlinear, Ode | 11 | Handwritten Notes, 18.335 adjoint notes (Johnson) |
| Spring Break | |||||
| 15 | M | 4/3 | Guest Lecture, Billy Moses | Enzyme AD | |
| 16 | W | 4/5 | Guest Lecture, Keaton Burns | Dedalus PDE Solver | |
| 17 | M | 4/10 | Adjoints of ODE | Handwritten Notes | |
| 18 | W | 4/12 | Partitioning | ||
| M | 4/17 | Patriots' Day | |||
| 19 | W | 4/19 | Fast Multipole and Parallel Prefix | Unfinished Draft | |
| 20 | M | 4/24 | |||
| 21 | W | 4/26 | Project Presentation I | ||
| 22 | M | 5/1 | Project Presentation II | ||
| 23 | W | 5/3 | Project Presentation III | ||
| 24 | M | 5/8 | Project Presentation IV | ||
| 25 | W | 5/10 | Project Presentation V | ||
| M | 5/15 | Class Cancelled |
|8|W|3/1| GPU Parallelism I |7| [video 1],[video2]
|9|M|3/6| GPU Paralellism II | | [video], [Eig&SVD derivatives notebooks], [2022 IAP Class Matrix Calculus]
|10|W|3/8| MPI | | Slides, [video, Lauren Milichen],[Performance Metrics] see p317,15.6
|11|M|3/13| Differential Equations I | 9|
|12|W|3/15| Differential Equations II |10 |
|13|M|3/20| Neural ODE |11 |
|14|W|3/22| |13 |
| | | | Spring Break |
|15|M|4/3| | | GPU SlidesPrefix Materials
|16|W|4/5| Convolutions and PDEs | 14 |
|17|M|4/10| Chris R on ode adjoints, PRAM Model |11 | [video]|
|18|W|4/12| Linear and Nonlinear System Adjoints | 11 | [video]|
| |M|4/17| Patriots' Day
|19|W|4/19| Lagrange Multipliers, Spectral Partitioning || Partitioning Slides| |
|20|M|4/24| |15| [video],notes on adjoint|
|21|W|4/26| Project Presentation I |
|22|M|5/1| Project Presentation II | Materials
|23|W|5/3| Project Presentation III | 16 | [video]
|24|M|5/8| Project Presentation IV |
|25|W|5/10| Project Presentation V |
|26|M|5/15| Project Presentation VI|
Setting the stage for this course which will involve high performance computing, mathematics, and scientific machine learning, we looked at two introductory notebooks. The first [Julia is fast]](https://github.com/mitmath/18337/blob/master/lecture1/Julia%20is%20fast.ipynb) primarily reveals just how much performance languages like Python can leave on the table. Many people don't compare languages, so they are unlikely to be aware. The second [AutoDiff]](https://github.com/mitmath/18337/blob/master/lecture1/AutoDiff.ipynb) reveals the "magic" of forward mode autodifferentiation showing how a compiler can "rewrite" a program through the use of software overloading and still maintain performance. This is a whole new way to see calculus, not the way you learned it in a first year class, and not finite differences either.
We gave an example [The Parallel Dream]](https://github.com/mitmath/18337/blob/master/lecture1/the_dream.ipynb)
HW1 will be due Thursday Feb 16. This is really just a getting started homework.
For the second half of the class students will work on the final project. A one-page final project proposal must be sumbitted by March 24 Friday, through canvas.
Last three weeks (tentative) will be student presentations.
Here's a list of current projects of interest to the julialab
One possibility is to review an interesting algorithm not covered in the course and develop a high performance implementation. Some examples include:
- High performance PDE solvers for specific PDEs like Navier-Stokes
- Common high performance algorithms (Ex: Jacobian-Free Newton Krylov for PDEs)
- Recreation of a parameter sensitivity study in a field like biology, pharmacology, or climate science
- Augmented Neural Ordinary Differential Equations
- Neural Jump Stochastic Differential Equations
- Parallelized stencil calculations
- Distributed linear algebra kernels
- Parallel implementations of statistical libraries, such as survival statistics or linear models for big data. Here's one example parallel library) and a second example.
- Parallelization of data analysis methods
- Type-generic implementations of sparse linear algebra methods
- A fast regex library
- Math library primitives (exp, log, etc.)
Another possibility is to work on state-of-the-art performance engineering. This would be implementing a new auto-parallelization or performance enhancement. For these types of projects, implementing an application for benchmarking is not required, and one can instead benchmark the effects on already existing code to find cases where it is beneficial (or leads to performance regressions). Possible examples are:
- Create a system for automatic multithreaded parallelism of array operations and see what kinds of packages end up more efficient
- Setup BLAS with a PARTR backend and investigate the downstream effects on multithreaded code like an existing PDE solver
- Investigate the effects of work-stealing in multithreaded loops
- Fast parallelized type-generic FFT. Starter code by Steven Johnson (creator of FFTW) and Yingbo Ma can be found here
- Type-generic BLAS. Starter code can be found here
- Implementation of parallelized map-reduce methods. For example,
pmapreduceextension topmapthat adds a paralellized reduction, or a fast GPU-based map-reduce. - Investigating auto-compilation of full package codes to GPUs using tools like CUDAnative and/or GPUifyLoops.
- Investigating alternative implementations of databases and dataframes. NamedTuple backends of DataFrames, alternative type-stable DataFrames, defaults for CSV reading and other large-table formats like JuliaDB.
Additionally, Scientific Machine Learning is a wide open field with lots of low hanging fruit. Instead of a review, a suitable research project can be used for chosen for the final project. Possibilities include:
- Acceleration methods for adjoints of differential equations
- Improved methods for Physics-Informed Neural Networks
- New applications of neural differential equations
- Parallelized implicit ODE solvers for large ODE systems
- GPU-parallelized ODE/SDE solvers for small systems