accelerate/pr_4021/en/usage_guides/intel_cpu.md

# Training on Intel CPU

## How It Works For Training optimization in CPU

Accelerate has full support for Intel CPU, all you need to do is enabling it through the config.

**Scenario 1**: Acceleration of No distributed CPU training

Run accelerate config on your machine:

```bash
$ accelerate config
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In which compute environment are you running?
This machine
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which type of machine are you using?
No distributed training
Do you want to run your training on CPU only (even if a GPU / Apple Silicon device is available)? [yes/NO]:yes
Do you wish to optimize your script with torch dynamo?[yes/NO]:NO
Do you want to use DeepSpeed? [yes/NO]: NO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you wish to use FP16 or BF16 (mixed precision)?
bf16
```
This will generate a config file that will be used automatically to properly set the
default options when doing

```bash
accelerate launch my_script.py --args_to_my_script
```

For instance, here is how you would run the NLP example `examples/nlp_example.py` (from the root of the repo) with `default_config.yaml` which is generated by `accelerate config`

```bash
compute_environment: LOCAL_MACHINE
distributed_type: 'NO'
downcast_bf16: 'no'
machine_rank: 0
main_training_function: main
mixed_precision: bf16
num_machines: 1
num_processes: 1
rdzv_backend: static
same_network: true
tpu_env: []
tpu_use_cluster: false
tpu_use_sudo: false
use_cpu: true
```
```bash
accelerate launch examples/nlp_example.py
```

> [!CAUTION]
> `accelerator.prepare` can currently only handle simultaneously preparing multiple models (and no optimizer) OR a single model-optimizer pair for training. Other attempts (e.g., two model-optimizer pairs) will raise a verbose error. To work around this limitation, consider separately using `accelerator.prepare` for each model-optimizer pair.

**Scenario 2**: Acceleration of distributed CPU training
we use Intel oneCCL for communication, combined with Intel® MPI library to deliver flexible, efficient, scalable cluster messaging on Intel® architecture. you could refer the [here](https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/perf_train_cpu_many) for the installation guide

Run accelerate config on your machine(node0):

```bash
$ accelerate config
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In which compute environment are you running?
This machine
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Which type of machine are you using?
multi-CPU
How many different machines will you use (use more than 1 for multi-node training)? [1]: 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the rank of this machine?
0
What is the IP address of the machine that will host the main process? 36.112.23.24
What is the port you will use to communicate with the main process? 29500
Are all the machines on the same local network? Answer `no` if nodes are on the cloud and/or on different network hosts [YES/no]: yes
Do you want accelerate to launch mpirun? [yes/NO]: yes
Please enter the path to the hostfile to use with mpirun [~/hostfile]: ~/hostfile
Enter the number of oneCCL worker threads [1]: 1
Do you wish to optimize your script with torch dynamo?[yes/NO]:NO
How many processes should be used for distributed training? [1]:16
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you wish to use FP16 or BF16 (mixed precision)?
bf16
```
For instance, here is how you would run the NLP example `examples/nlp_example.py` (from the root of the repo) for distributed CPU training.

`default_config.yaml` which is generated by `accelerate config`
```bash
compute_environment: LOCAL_MACHINE
distributed_type: MULTI_CPU
downcast_bf16: 'no'
machine_rank: 0
main_process_ip: 36.112.23.24
main_process_port: 29500
main_training_function: main
mixed_precision: bf16
mpirun_config:
  mpirun_hostfile: /home/user/hostfile
num_machines: 4
num_processes: 16
rdzv_backend: static
same_network: true
tpu_env: []
tpu_use_cluster: false
tpu_use_sudo: false
use_cpu: true
```

Set following env and using intel MPI to launch the training

In `node0`, you need to create a configuration file which contains the IP addresses of each node (for example hostfile) and pass that configuration file path as an argument.

If you selected to let Accelerate launch `mpirun`, ensure that the location of your hostfile matches the path in the config.

```bash
$ cat hostfile
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #node0 ip
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #node1 ip
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #node2 ip
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #node3 ip
```

```bash
accelerate launch examples/nlp_example.py
```

You can also directly launch distributed training with `mpirun` command, you need to run the following command in node0 and **16DDP** will be enabled in node0,node1,node2,node3 with BF16 mixed precision. When using this method, the python script, python environment, and accelerate config file need to be available on all of the machines used for multi-CPU training.

```bash
export MASTER_ADDR=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #node0 ip
mpirun -f hostfile -n 16 -ppn 4 accelerate launch examples/nlp_example.py
```