tf.distribute.TPUStrategy

Synchronous training on TPUs and TPU Pods.

Inherits From: Strategy

tf.distribute.TPUStrategy(
    tpu_cluster_resolver=None, experimental_device_assignment=None
)

To construct a TPUStrategy object, you need to run the initialization code as below:

resolver = tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.TPUClusterResolver(tpu='')
tf.config.experimental_connect_to_cluster(resolver)
tf.tpu.experimental.initialize_tpu_system(resolver)
strategy = tf.distribute.TPUStrategy(resolver)

While using distribution strategies, the variables created within the strategy's scope will be replicated across all the replicas and can be kept in sync using all-reduce algorithms.

To run TF2 programs on TPUs, you can either use .compile and .fit APIs in tf.keras with TPUStrategy, or write your own customized training loop by calling strategy.run directly. Note that TPUStrategy doesn't support pure eager execution, so please make sure the function passed into strategy.run is a tf.function or strategy.run is called inside a tf.function if eager behavior is enabled. See more details in https://www.tensorflow.org/guide/tpu.

experimental_distribute_datasets_from_function and experimental_distribute_dataset APIs can be used to distribute the dataset across the TPU workers when writing your own training loop. If you are using fit and compile methods available in tf.keras.Model, then Keras will handle the distribution for you.

An example of writing customized training loop on TPUs:

with strategy.scope():
  model = tf.keras.Sequential([
    tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, input_shape=(5,)),
  ])
  optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.SGD(learning_rate=0.1)

def dataset_fn(ctx):
  x = np.random.random((2, 5)).astype(np.float32)
  y = np.random.randint(2, size=(2, 1))
  dataset = tf.data.Dataset.from_tensor_slices((x, y))
  return dataset.repeat().batch(1, drop_remainder=True)
dist_dataset = strategy.experimental_distribute_datasets_from_function(
    dataset_fn)
iterator = iter(dist_dataset)

@tf.function()
def train_step(iterator):

  def step_fn(inputs):
    features, labels = inputs
    with tf.GradientTape() as tape:
      logits = model(features, training=True)
      loss = tf.keras.losses.sparse_categorical_crossentropy(
          labels, logits)

    grads = tape.gradient(loss, model.trainable_variables)
    optimizer.apply_gradients(zip(grads, model.trainable_variables))

  strategy.run(step_fn, args=(next(iterator),))

train_step(iterator)

For the advanced use cases like model parallelism, you can set experimental_device_assignment argument when creating TPUStrategy to specify number of replicas and number of logical devices. Below is an example to initialize TPU system with 2 logical devices and 1 replica.

resolver = tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.TPUClusterResolver(tpu='')
tf.config.experimental_connect_to_cluster(resolver)
topology = tf.tpu.experimental.initialize_tpu_system(resolver)
device_assignment = tf.tpu.experimental.DeviceAssignment.build(
    topology,
    computation_shape=[1, 1, 1, 2],
    num_replicas=1)
strategy = tf.distribute.TPUStrategy(
    resolver, experimental_device_assignment=device_assignment)

Then you can run a tf.add operation only on logical device 0.

@tf.function()
def step_fn(inputs):
  features, _ = inputs
  output = tf.add(features, features)

  # Add operation will be executed on logical device 0.
  output = strategy.experimental_assign_to_logical_device(output, 0)
  return output
dist_dataset = strategy.experimental_distribute_datasets_from_function(
    dataset_fn)
iterator = iter(dist_dataset)
strategy.run(step_fn, args=(next(iterator),))

Args
tpu_cluster_resolver	A tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.TPUClusterResolver, which provides information about the TPU cluster. If None, it will assume running on a local TPU worker.
experimental_device_assignment	Optional tf.tpu.experimental.DeviceAssignment to specify the placement of replicas on the TPU cluster.

Attributes
cluster_resolver	Returns the cluster resolver associated with this strategy. In general, when using a multi-worker tf.distribute strategy such as tf.distribute.experimental.MultiWorkerMirroredStrategy or tf.distribute.experimental.TPUStrategy(), there is a tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.ClusterResolver associated with the strategy used, and such an instance is returned by this property. Strategies that intend to have an associated tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.ClusterResolver must set the relevant attribute, or override this property; otherwise, None is returned by default. Those strategies should also provide information regarding what is returned by this property. Single-worker strategies usually do not have a tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.ClusterResolver, and in those cases this property will return None. The tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.ClusterResolver may be useful when the user needs to access information such as the cluster spec, task type or task id. For example, os.environ['TF_CONFIG'] = json.dumps({ 'cluster': { 'worker': ["localhost:12345", "localhost:23456"], 'ps': ["localhost:34567"] }, 'task': {'type': 'worker', 'index': 0} }) # This implicitly uses TF_CONFIG for the cluster and current task info. strategy = tf.distribute.experimental.MultiWorkerMirroredStrategy() ... if strategy.cluster_resolver.task_type == 'worker': # Perform something that's only applicable on workers. Since we set this # as a worker above, this block will run on this particular instance. elif strategy.cluster_resolver.task_type == 'ps': # Perform something that's only applicable on parameter servers. Since we # set this as a worker above, this block will not run on this particular # instance. For more information, please see tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.ClusterResolver's API docstring.
extended	tf.distribute.StrategyExtended with additional methods.
num_replicas_in_sync	Returns number of replicas over which gradients are aggregated.

Methods

experimental_assign_to_logical_device

View source

experimental_assign_to_logical_device(
    tensor, logical_device_id
)

Adds annotation that tensor will be assigned to a logical device.

Note: This API is only supported in TPUStrategy for now. This adds an annotation to tensor specifying that operations on tensor will be invoked on logical core device id logical_device_id. When model parallelism is used, the default behavior is that all ops are placed on zero-th logical device.

# Initializing TPU system with 2 logical devices and 4 replicas.
resolver = tf.distribute.cluster_resolver.TPUClusterResolver(tpu='')
tf.config.experimental_connect_to_cluster(resolver)
topology = tf.tpu.experimental.initialize_tpu_system(resolver)
device_assignment = tf.tpu.experimental.DeviceAssignment.build(
    topology,
    computation_shape=[1, 1, 1, 2],
    num_replicas=4)
strategy = tf.distribute.TPUStrategy(
    resolver, experimental_device_assignment=device_assignment)
iterator = iter(inputs)

@tf.function()
def step_fn(inputs):
  output = tf.add(inputs, inputs)

  # Add operation will be executed on logical device 0.
  output = strategy.experimental_assign_to_logical_device(output, 0)
  return output

strategy.run(step_fn, args=(next(iterator),))

Args
tensor	Input tensor to annotate.
logical_device_id	Id of the logical core to which the tensor will be assigned.

Raises
ValueError	The logical device id presented is not consistent with total number of partitions specified by the device assignment.

Returns
Annotated tensor with idential value as tensor.

experimental_distribute_dataset

View source

experimental_distribute_dataset(
    dataset, options=None
)

Creates tf.distribute.DistributedDataset from tf.data.Dataset.

The returned tf.distribute.DistributedDataset can be iterated over similar to how regular datasets can. NOTE: The user cannot add any more transformations to a tf.distribute.DistributedDataset.

The following is an example:

strategy = tf.distribute.MirroredStrategy()

# Create a dataset
dataset = dataset_ops.Dataset.TFRecordDataset([
  "/a/1.tfr", "/a/2.tfr", "/a/3.tfr", "/a/4.tfr"])

# Distribute that dataset
dist_dataset = strategy.experimental_distribute_dataset(dataset)

# Iterate over the `tf.distribute.DistributedDataset`
for x in dist_dataset:
  # process dataset elements
  strategy.run(replica_fn, args=(x,))

In the code snippet above, the tf.distribute.DistributedDataset dist_dataset is batched by GLOBAL_BATCH_SIZE, and we iterate through it using for x in dist_dataset. x a tf.distribute.DistributedValues containing data for all replicas, which aggregates to a batch of GLOBAL_BATCH_SIZE. tf.distribute.Strategy.run will take care of feeding the right per-replica data in x to the right replica_fn executed on each replica.

What's under the hood of this method, when we say the tf.data.Dataset instance - dataset - gets distributed? It depends on how you set the tf.data.experimental.AutoShardPolicy through tf.data.experimental.DistributeOptions. By default, it is set to tf.data.experimental.AutoShardPolicy.AUTO. In a multi-worker setting, we will first attempt to distribute dataset by detecting whether dataset is being created out of reader datasets (e.g. tf.data.TFRecordDataset, tf.data.TextLineDataset, etc.) and if so, try to shard the input files. Note that there has to be at least one input file per worker. If you have less than one input file per worker, we suggest that you disable dataset sharding across workers, by setting the tf.data.experimental.DistributeOptions.auto_shard_policy to be