---
license: other
tags:
  - pytorch
  - rocm
  - mi300a
  - amd
---

# PyTorch 2.13 for AMD Instinct MI300A (ROCm 7.2)

A pip-installable PyTorch 2.13 build with MI300A APU shared-memory support.
Eligible CPU-to-GPU and GPU-to-CPU transfers alias the same physical memory
instead of copying, so the transfer disappears rather than getting faster.

> **Disclosure:** this build, its tests, and this page were prepared with the
> assistance of a generative AI tool (Claude Code). A human reviewed the change
> and the validation results before publishing.

## Install

```bash
python3.12 -m venv mi300a && source mi300a/bin/activate
pip install https://huggingface.co/m-yuasa/pytorch-mi300a-rocm72/resolve/main/torch-2.13.0+mi300a.rocm72-cp312-cp312-linux_x86_64.whl
```

The ROCm 7.2 user-space libraries are bundled, so no ROCm module or
`/opt/rocm` installation is needed at run time. A compatible AMDGPU/KFD kernel
driver must already be present.

## Requirements

- AMD Instinct MI300A (`gfx942`)
- CPython 3.12
- Linux x86_64 with x86-64-v2 or newer, glibc 2.34 or newer

## TorchVision and TorchAudio

Do not run `pip install torch torchvision`. TorchVision pins an exact upstream
torch version that this build's local version `2.13.0+mi300a.rocm72` does not
satisfy, so pip silently replaces this wheel with the stock nightly and the APU
support is lost. Install the companions with `--no-deps`:

```bash
pip install --no-deps --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/nightly/rocm7.2 \
  torchvision==0.28.0+rocm7.2 torchaudio==2.11.0+rocm7.2
pip install --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/nightly/rocm7.2 triton-rocm==3.7.1
```

`pip check` will report the TorchVision requirement as unmet. That is the
version-string mismatch only; imports and native operators work.

## Verify

```python
import torch

cpu = torch.arange(1024, dtype=torch.float32)
gpu = cpu.to("cuda:0")
assert torch.cuda.apu.is_available(0)
assert torch.cuda.apu.is_shared(gpu)
torch.testing.assert_close(gpu.cpu(), cpu)
print("APU shared memory: OK")
```

## What this changes

Measured against the stock `2.13.0+rocm7.2` build on the same MI300A with the
same commands.

Compute speed is unchanged: resnet50 bf16 training at batch 256 reaches 1771
samples/sec here and 1774 samples/sec on the stock build, and GEMM throughput
and copy bandwidth match. This build is not faster at arithmetic.

What changes is the memory a CPU-to-GPU handoff costs, because no copy is made:

| Payload moved to the GPU | This build | Stock |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 256 MiB | 0 MiB GPU, 1 MiB system | 256 MiB GPU, 841 MiB system |
| 1 GiB | 0 MiB GPU, 5 MiB system | 1024 MiB GPU, 1030 MiB system |
| 4 GiB | 0 MiB GPU, 9 MiB system | 4096 MiB GPU, 4120 MiB system |

The gain is real for workloads that stage large CPU-resident data onto the GPU.
It is small for compute-bound training, where weights, activations, and
gradients dominate: resnet50 at batch 256 peaks at 11059 MiB of GPU allocation
here against 11307 MiB on the stock build.

## Choosing a BLAS backend

The default hipBLASLt path collapses on some large shapes. A 16384 square bf16
matmul measures 15.7 TFLOPS with hipBLASLt and 617 TFLOPS with rocBLAS, while
both agree at 8192. If large matmuls are slower than expected:

```python
torch.backends.cuda.preferred_blas_library("cublas")  # rocBLAS
```

`torch.cuda.tunable` can also autotune GEMM kernels per shape. This comes from
the ROCm libraries, not from the APU changes; the stock build behaves the same.

## Validation

On a single MI300A APU: 20/20 APU shared-memory tests pass, `pip check` is
clean, and TorchVision GPU NMS, TorchAudio, and `torch.compile` all work.

## Source

The complete source for this build, including the APU shared-memory changes, is
at:

- Branch: <https://github.com/Mamoru-Yuasa/pytorch/tree/mi300a-apu-shared-memory-v2.13>
- Tag: `mi300a-apu-rocm7.2-torch213-v0.1.0`
- Commit: `f0fb8da574d2ccaa2772726cfd1f65857dfab2ce`
- Release notes: <https://github.com/Mamoru-Yuasa/pytorch/releases/tag/mi300a-apu-rocm7.2-torch213-v0.1.0>

Checking out that tag reproduces exactly the tree this wheel was built from;
`torch.version.git_version` records the same commit.

SHA-256 of this wheel:
`e3426c43a6b17ce174ef0ecb02306f3d97ec7ac2059d9dcb220ca7e9ab07e522`

## Licensing

This is an unofficial community build. It is not published by the PyTorch
Foundation or by AMD, and it is not endorsed by either.

PyTorch and the components vendored into it are covered by the license files
inside the wheel, under `torch-*.dist-info/licenses/`, and by the
`License-Expression` field in the wheel metadata.

The bundled build additionally ships ROCm 7.2 user-space libraries and a small
set of system libraries, added when the wheel was made self-contained. Their
license texts are included under
`torch-*.dist-info/licenses/bundled/`, alongside a `README.txt` mapping every
bundled shared object to the component whose terms cover it:

- `rocm/` covers MIOpen, rocBLAS, rocSOLVER, rocSPARSE, rocRAND, rocFFT, RCCL,
  hipBLAS, hipBLASLt, hipFFT, hipSOLVER, hipSPARSE, hipSPARSELt, HIP,
  amd_comgr, hsa-rocr, roctracer, rocprofiler, amd-smi, rocm-smi, rocm-core
- `system/` covers elfutils, libomp, libquadmath, bzip2, xz, zstd, and carries
  notices for libdrm, libgfortran, libgomp, numactl, and ncurses
- `external/` and `vendor/` carry notices for AOTriton and for
  `libhsa-amd-aqlprofile64.so`, which AMD distributes under its own terms

Some of these are copyleft, notably elfutils (GPL-2.0-or-later OR
LGPL-3.0-or-later) and numactl (LGPL-2.1 / GPL-2.0). Corresponding source for
those components is available on request. Anyone redistributing this wheel
further should keep the license directory intact and satisfy those obligations
themselves.

The minimal wheel attached to the GitHub release does not bundle any of these;
it links against the ROCm installation already present on the host.