Build and Install

Build pSZ/cuSZ

Due to limited bandwidth, CUDA-backend pSZ (cuSZ) is the developmental focus.

CUDA GPU architectures (SM version) and representative GPUs.

NVIDIA CUDA architectures, names, and representative GPUs are listed below. For more details, see CUDA GPUs.

SM id	Arch.	Grade/Segment	GPU product example
60 !	Pascal	HPC/AI	P100
70 !	Volta	HPC/AI	V100
75	Turing	consumer/professional	20 series, Quadro RTX
80	Ampere	HPC/AI	A100
86	Ampere	consumer/professional	30 series, RTX (Ampere)
89 *	Ada	consumer/professional	40 series, RTX (Ada)
90 *	Hopper	HPC/AI	H100
100 **	Blackwell	HPC/AI	B100
120 **	Blackwell	consumer/professional	50 series, RTX (Blackwell)

• ! deprecated as of CUDA 12.8 (we no longer actively test them).
• * as of CUDA 11.8
• ** as of CUDA 12.8

Recommended CUDA development environment

• Almost any version of Clang + CUDA toolkit
• selected GCC + CUDA combination:
  • GCC: the odd-numbered version is preferred.
  • GCC 9 (Ubuntu 20.04), GCC 11 (Ubuntu 22.04), GCC 13 (Ubuntu 24.04), GCC 15 (Ubuntu 26.04)
  • GCC 11/13 (depending on the "x" in RHEL 9.x)

• more reference: CUDA compilers, and CUDA architectures & gencode.

CUDA Backend

• An NVIDIA GPU with CUDA SDK 11.4 onward is the minimum requirement.
• Currently, the development team uses CUDA 13 daily.
• C++17-compliant host compiler
  • GCC 9 onward or any version of Clang
  • cmake 3.18 onward

The following provides the maximum compatibility for various CUDA GPU architectures (separate multiple SM versions with a semicolon ";"). An unmatched architecture with the target GPU runtime can produce unexpected results. Disabling unnecessary backends once the target SM is determined can speed up the build process. Please refer to the GPU architecture details provided above.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/szcompressor/cuSZ.git cusz-latest
cd cusz-latest && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. \
    -DPSZ_BACKEND=cuda \
    -DPSZ_BUILD_EXAMPLES=on \
    -DCMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES="80;86;89;90;100;120" \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DCMAKE_COLOR_DIAGNOSTICS=on \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=[/path/to/install/dir]
make -j
make install

Build for development

If possible, use ninja and Debug mode to speed up the build process.

git clone --recursive -b develop https://github.com/szcompressor/cuSZ.git cusz-dev
cd cusz-dev && mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. \
    -DPSZ_BACKEND=cuda \
    -DPSZ_BUILD_EXAMPLES=on \
    -DCMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES="75;80;86;89;90;100;120" \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -DCMAKE_COLOR_DIAGNOSTICS=on \
    -GNinja 
ninja
# `ctest` to perform testing