{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/launchpad-a-programming-model-for-distributed","title":"Launchpad: A Programming Model for Distributed Machine Learning Research","arxiv_id":"2106.04516","date":"2021-06-07","proceeding":null,"authors":["Fan Yang","Gabriel Barth-Maron","Piotr Stańczyk","Matthew Hoffman","Siqi Liu","Manuel Kroiss","Aedan Pope","Alban Rrustemi"],"abstract":"A major driver behind the success of modern machine learning algorithms has been their ability to process ever-larger amounts of data. As a result, the use of distributed systems in both research and production has become increasingly prevalent as a means to scale to this growing data. At the same time, however, distributing the learning process can drastically complicate the implementation of even simple algorithms. This is especially problematic as many machine learning practitioners are not well-versed in the design of distributed systems, let alone those that have complicated communication topologies. In this work we introduce Launchpad, a programming model that simplifies the process of defining and launching distributed systems that is specifically tailored towards a machine learning audience. We describe our framework, its design philosophy and implementation, and give a number of examples of common learning algorithms whose designs are greatly simplified by this approach.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.04516v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.04516v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"links_only","authors_date_abstract":"arXiv metadata, CC0 1.0 (https://info.arxiv.org/help/license), from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"launchpad-a-programming-model-for-distributed","repo_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad","is_official":0,"mentioned_in_paper":0,"mentioned_in_github":1,"framework":"tf","reach":{"status":"ok","spdx":"Apache-2.0"}}],"tasks":[],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2106.04516","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2106.04516"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad","reach":{"status":"ok","spdx":"Apache-2.0"}}],"summary":{"unverified":7},"by_repo_kind":{"listed":{"samples":7,"ran":0,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":0,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"af1717e60f018b81","entry":"get_port_from_address","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/address.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/address.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"af1717e60f018b81"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"a850f685da10b830","entry":"is_local_launch","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/context.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/context.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"a850f685da10b830"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"456ed1ce543132ed","entry":"is_local_launch_or_test","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/context.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/context.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"456ed1ce543132ed"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"7cc312b5f08b7065","entry":"register_exit_handler","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/launch/signal_handling.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/launch/signal_handling.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"7cc312b5f08b7065"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"686f8a4400bd4c8c","entry":"register_exit_handler_and_exit_gracefully_on_sigint","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/launch/signal_handling.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/launch/signal_handling.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"686f8a4400bd4c8c"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"94b2e40f7c76b958","entry":"wait_for_stop","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/launch/worker_manager.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/launch/worker_manager.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"94b2e40f7c76b958"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"11235e424e7ce419","entry":"wait_for_stop","repo":"deepmind/launchpad","repo_kind":"listed","path":"launchpad/launch/worker_manager_v2.py","file_url":"https://github.com/deepmind/launchpad/blob/HEAD/launchpad/launch/worker_manager_v2.py","link_basis":"harvester_set","language":"python","status":"unverified","verification_level":0,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"Apache-2.0","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"11235e424e7ce419"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}