# Auto Mixed Precision Training

Author: [Mingyan Jiang](https://github.com/jiangmingyan)

**Prerequisite**

- [Training Booster](../basics/booster_api.md)

**Related Paper**

- [Accelerating Scientific Computations with Mixed Precision Algorithms](https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.2794)
- [FP8 Formats for Deep Learning](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.05433)

## Introduction

AMP stands for automatic mixed precision training.
In Colossal-AI, we have incorporated different implementations of mixed precision training:

1. torch.amp
2. apex.amp
3. naive amp

| Colossal-AI    | support tensor parallel | support pipeline parallel | fp16 extent                                                                                          |
|----------------|-------------------------|---------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| AMP_TYPE.TORCH | ✅                       | ❌                         | Model parameters, activation, gradients are downcast to fp16 during forward and backward propagation |
| AMP_TYPE.APEX  | ❌                       | ❌                         | More fine-grained, we can choose opt_level O0, O1, O2, O3                                            |
| AMP_TYPE.NAIVE | ✅                       | ✅                         | Model parameters, forward and backward operations are all downcast to fp16                           |

The first two rely on the original implementation of PyTorch (version 1.6 and above) and NVIDIA Apex.
The last method is similar to Apex O2 level.
Among these methods, apex AMP is not compatible with tensor parallelism.
This is because that tensors are split across devices in tensor parallelism, thus, it is required to communicate among different processes to check if inf or nan occurs in the whole model weights.
We modified the torch amp implementation so that it is compatible with tensor parallelism now.

> ❌️ fp16 and zero are not compatible
>
> ⚠️ Pipeline only support naive AMP currently

We recommend you to use torch AMP as it generally gives better accuracy than naive AMP if no pipeline is used.

## Table of Contents

In this tutorial we will cover:

1. [AMP introduction](#amp-introduction)
2. [AMP in Colossal-AI](#amp-in-colossal-ai)
3. [Hands-on Practice](#hands-on-practice)

## AMP Introduction

Automatic Mixed Precision training is a mixture of FP16 and FP32 training.

Half-precision float point format (FP16) has lower arithmetic complexity and higher compute efficiency. Besides, fp16 requires half of the storage needed by fp32 and saves memory & network bandwidth, which makes more memory available for large batch size and model size.

However, there are other operations, like reductions, which require the dynamic range of fp32 to avoid numeric overflow/underflow. That's the reason why we introduce automatic mixed precision, attempting to match each operation to its appropriate data type, which can reduce the memory footprint and augment training efficiency.

<figure style={{textAlign: "center"}}>
<img src="https://s2.loli.net/2022/01/28/URzLJ3MPeDQbtck.png"/>
<figcaption>Illustration of an ordinary AMP (figure from <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.05818">PatrickStar paper</a>)</figcaption>
</figure>

## AMP in Colossal-AI

We supported three AMP training methods and allowed the user to train with AMP with no code. If you want to train with amp, just assign `mixed_precision` with `fp16` when you instantiate the `Booster`. Next we will support `bf16`.

Currently we only support `fp8` mixed precision training for the `Linear` layer. Please specify the `use_fp8` parameter when create the plugin object.

To reduce the communication volume inter nodes in low-bandwidth scenarios, we support FP8 communication compression. Please specify the `fp8_communication` parameter when create the  plugin object.

### Start with Booster

instantiate `Booster` with `mixed_precision="fp16"`, then you can train with torch amp.

<!--- doc-test-ignore-start -->

```python
"""
    Mapping:
    'fp16': torch amp
    'fp16_apex': apex amp,
    'bf16': bf16,
    'fp16_naive': naive amp
"""
from colossalai import Booster
booster = Booster(mixed_precision='fp16',...)
```

<!--- doc-test-ignore-end -->

or you can create a `FP16TorchMixedPrecision` object, such as:

<!--- doc-test-ignore-start -->

```python
from colossalai.mixed_precision import FP16TorchMixedPrecision
mixed_precision = FP16TorchMixedPrecision(
    init_scale=2.**16,
    growth_factor=2.0,
    backoff_factor=0.5,
    growth_interval=2000)
booster = Booster(mixed_precision=mixed_precision,...)
```

<!--- doc-test-ignore-end -->

The same goes for other types of amps.

### Torch AMP Configuration

{{ autodoc:colossalai.booster.mixed_precision.FP16TorchMixedPrecision }}

### Apex AMP Configuration

For this mode, we rely on the Apex implementation for mixed precision training.
We support this plugin because it allows for finer control on the granularity of mixed precision.
For example, O2 level (optimization level 2) will keep batch normalization in fp32.

If you look for more details, please refer to [Apex Documentation](https://nvidia.github.io/apex/).

{{ autodoc:colossalai.booster.mixed_precision.FP16ApexMixedPrecision }}

### Naive AMP Configuration

In Naive AMP mode, we achieved mixed precision training while maintaining compatibility with complex tensor and pipeline parallelism.
This AMP mode will cast all operations into fp16.
The following code block shows the mixed precision api for this mode.

{{ autodoc:colossalai.booster.mixed_precision.FP16NaiveMixedPrecision }}

When using `colossalai.booster`, you are required to first instantiate a model, an optimizer and a criterion.
The output model is converted to AMP model of smaller memory consumption.
If your input model is already too large to fit in a GPU, please instantiate your model weights in `dtype=torch.float16`.
Otherwise, try smaller models or checkout more parallelization training techniques!

### FP8 Communication

In low-bandwidth scenarios, to reduce the communication load multiple nodes, we support FP8 communication compression, which can be enabled by using `fp8_communication=True` when you when create the plugin object (such as `GeminiPlugin`). The all-to-all, all-gather and P2P operations inter nodes will use FP8 format for data transmission. Currently the FP8 communication of reduction operators such as all-reduce and reduce-scatter is currently not supported due to lack of support of the NCCL library.

## Hands-on Practice

Now we will introduce the use of AMP with Colossal-AI. In this practice, we will use Torch AMP as an example.

### Step 1. Import libraries in train.py

Create a `train.py` and import the necessary dependencies. Remember to install `scipy` and `timm` by running
`pip install timm scipy`.

```python
import os
from pathlib import Path

import torch
from timm.models import vit_base_patch16_224
from titans.utils import barrier_context
from torchvision import datasets, transforms

import colossalai
from colossalai.booster import Booster
from colossalai.booster.plugin import TorchDDPPlugin
from colossalai.logging import get_dist_logger
from colossalai.nn.lr_scheduler import LinearWarmupLR
```

### Step 2. Initialize Distributed Environment

We then need to initialize distributed environment. For demo purpose, we uses `launch_from_torch`. You can refer to [Launch Colossal-AI](../basics/launch_colossalai.md)
for other initialization methods.

```python
# initialize distributed setting
parser = colossalai.get_default_parser()
args = parser.parse_args()

# launch from torch
colossalai.launch_from_torch()

```

### Step 3. Create training components

Build your model, optimizer, loss function, lr scheduler and dataloaders. Note that the root path of the dataset is
obtained from the environment variable `DATA`. You may `export DATA=/path/to/data` or change `Path(os.environ['DATA'])`
to a path on your machine. Data will be automatically downloaded to the root path.

```python
# define the constants
NUM_EPOCHS = 2
BATCH_SIZE = 128

# build model
model = vit_base_patch16_224(drop_rate=0.1)

# build dataloader
train_dataset = datasets.Caltech101(
    root=Path(os.environ['DATA']),
    download=True,
    transform=transforms.Compose([
        transforms.Resize(256),
        transforms.RandomResizedCrop(224),
        transforms.RandomHorizontalFlip(),
        transforms.ToTensor(),
        Gray2RGB(),
        transforms.Normalize([0.5, 0.5, 0.5],
                                [0.5, 0.5, 0.5])
    ]))

# build optimizer
optimizer = torch.optim.SGD(model.parameters(), lr=1e-2, weight_decay=0.1)

# build loss
criterion = torch.nn.CrossEntropyLoss()

# lr_scheduler
lr_scheduler = LinearWarmupLR(optimizer, warmup_steps=50, total_steps=NUM_EPOCHS)
```

### Step 4. Inject AMP Feature

Create a `MixedPrecision`(if needed) and `TorchDDPPlugin` object, call `colossalai.boost` convert the training components to be running with FP16.

```python
plugin = TorchDDPPlugin()
train_dataloader = plugin.prepare_dataloader(train_dataset, batch_size=BATCH_SIZE, shuffle=True, drop_last=True)
booster = Booster(mixed_precision='fp16', plugin=plugin)

# if you need to customize the config, do like this
# >>> from colossalai.mixed_precision import FP16TorchMixedPrecision
# >>> mixed_precision = FP16TorchMixedPrecision(
# >>>     init_scale=2.**16,
# >>>     growth_factor=2.0,
# >>>     backoff_factor=0.5,
# >>>     growth_interval=2000)
# >>> plugin = TorchDDPPlugin()
# >>> booster = Booster(mixed_precision=mixed_precision, plugin=plugin)

# boost model, optimizer, criterion, dataloader, lr_scheduler
model, optimizer, criterion, dataloader, lr_scheduler = booster.boost(model, optimizer, criterion, dataloader, lr_scheduler)
```

### Step 5. Train with Booster

Use booster in a normal training loops.

```python
model.train()
for epoch in range(NUM_EPOCHS):
    for img, label in enumerate(train_dataloader):
        img = img.cuda()
        label = label.cuda()
        optimizer.zero_grad()
        output = model(img)
        loss = criterion(output, label)
        booster.backward(loss, optimizer)
        optimizer.step()
    lr_scheduler.step()
```

### Step 6. Invoke Training Scripts

Use the following command to start the training scripts. You can change `--nproc_per_node` to use a different number of GPUs.

```shell
colossalai run --nproc_per_node 1 train.py
```

<!-- doc-test-command: torchrun --standalone --nproc_per_node=1 mixed_precision_training_with_booster.py  -->
