2. Release overview

2.1. Operating system support

See Table 4.3 for details of the operating systems supported.

  • The Poplar SDK for RHEL 8 requires the Python version to be upgraded to 3.9 in order to support PyTorch version 1.13.1.

2.2. PopTorch Geometric (experimental)

  • Added experimental PopTorch Geometric library to enable support for PyTorch Geometric on IPU.

2.3. PopTorch

Compatible with PyTorch 1.13.1 (upgraded from 1.13)

  • Added support for automatic fusion of scatter operations into a grouped scatter operation to improve performance.

2.4. TensorFlow

TensorFlow 1.15.5 (CentOS 7.6 only)

  • Make TensorFlow compatible with NumPy version 1.24.

TensorFlow 2.6.3

  • Make TensorFlow compatible with NumPy version 1.24.

2.5. PopART

  • Added support for grouped gathers and grouped scatters.

  • Added support for scatter reduction MUL operation.

  • Populate the deviceIteration field in PopEF metadata.

2.6. PopEF

  • Added deviceIteration field to PopEF metadata.

2.7. Model Runtime

  • Added support for dynamic batching in ModelRunner.

2.8. Driver and utilities

  • Added gc-boardtool for configuring C600 cards.