Oracle, AMD Agree on GPU-Accelerated Java

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

In an announcement made at JavaOne, Oracle and AMD confirmed that the two companies have created an OpenJDK project with the goal to run the JVM on GPUs.

Phil Rogers, AMD Corporate Fellow and president of the Heterogenous System Architecture (HAS) described "Project Sumatra", which will be led initially by Oracle's John Coomes, and said that the technology will be designed to work on discrete GPUs as well as heterogeneous CPU/GPU designs, such as AMD's APUs.

Oracle disclosed that it will be using its HotSpot JVM and the libraries from Java 8's Lambda project, which was published last year as a way to support Java programming in multicore environments. If a GPU is available in a system, Java code will be converted to OpenCL code and then run on the GPU. In a statement released to the press, Georges Saab, vice president of software development for the Java Platform Group at Oracle said: "We expect our work with AMD and other OpenJDK participants in Project 'Sumatra' will eventually help provide Java developers with the ability to quickly leverage GPU acceleration for better performance."

Sumatra may become available with the release of Java 8 in 2013.

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Wolfgang Gruener
38 Comments Comment from the forums
  • luciferano
    Java on GPUs... That could be incredible if Java was more secure.
    Reply
  • Hiii
    I like the idea, and btw how much software is already running on java?
    Reply
  • joytech22
    HiiiI like the idea, and btw how much software is already running on java?Well there's an entire MMORPG made for it (Runescape, worlds largest Java application I think?)
    A lot of things use java outside of the computer realm, devices of all kinds.

    It was surprising to learn that even my car radio uses java.
    Reply
  • MaXimus421
    Yup. Java is in nearly every electronic device in some form or another.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    My GPU does get thirsty when its not playing games.
    Reply
  • dark_wizzie
    I have SLI 8800gt, Q6600 running Runescape on max, I don't even get their max 50 fps. (I don't play RS, this was in the past.) CPU was at like 50% usage, GPU wasn't stressed because going max + AA to medium I actually LOST fps lowering quality. They gotta fix this.
    Reply
  • phatboe
    I welcome this as Java is everywhere but it runs slow a molasses. Hopefully the GPU can insert some tangible performance gains. My question though is I really don't understand how a GPU will make Java code any faster. The problem is that most code is serial by design, so I don't understand how using a highly parallel GPU will make Java code run any faster.
    Reply
  • tobalaz
    I hate Java, its a coding nightmare.
    But it is on everything, so this is a win right?
    Reply
  • Shin-san
    HiiiI like the idea, and btw how much software is already running on java?Lots of Fortune 500 companies use it on their server-side.

    tobalazI hate Java, its a coding nightmare.But it is on everything, so this is a win right?Have you ever done J2EE? It's awful. Java itself isn't bad, even though the "automatic garbage collection" can lead to nightmares
    Reply
  • rocknrollz
    I welcome this as Java is everywhere but it runs slow a molasses. Hopefully the GPU can insert some tangible performance gains. My question though is I really don't understand how a GPU will make Java code any faster. The problem is that most code is serial by design, so I don't understand how using a highly parallel GPU will make Java code run any faster.

    The GPU won't run Java, the Java will be turned into OpenCL and then run. And GPU's can of course run OpenCL very fast.
    Reply