POPL 2026
Sun 11 - Sat 17 January 2026 Rennes, France
Sun 11 Jan 2026 10:05 - 10:15 at Salle 13 - First Session Chair(s): Alexander K. Lew

Vectorized probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) support high-performance, data-parallel programmable inference. To expose high-level programming models to users, vectorization in these systems hides the concerns of memory management and parallel threading, resulting in black-boxed parallel compilation and restrictions on custom optimizations. We present a design for GraPPL—a GPU-programmable PPL—which exposes high-level features, including traces and probabilistic generative function interfaces, while enabling GPU-programmable control over low-level runtime and memory profiles. GraPPL allows models to be expressed as sequential C++ functions and/or vectorized CUDA GPU kernels which support random choice expressions; GraPPL’s template-specialized interpreters transform these expressions into various probabilistic semantics, while automatically maintaining coherent execution traces of the probabilistic program across CPU and GPU execution contexts. We demonstrate GraPPL’s efficiency in an example on blocks Gibbs sampling on factor graphs, which shows a 3× gain over JAX-based implementations with equivalent levels of automation and modularity.

Sun 11 Jan

Displayed time zone: Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris change

09:00 - 10:30
First SessionLAFI at Salle 13
Chair(s): Alexander K. Lew Yale University
09:00
5m
Day opening
Welcome
LAFI
Hugo Paquet Inria, École Normale Supérieure, Alexander K. Lew Yale University
09:07
20m
Industry talk
Basis — A Programming Languages Take on Principled Foundations for AI
LAFI
09:29
10m
Talk
Towards an Equational Calculus of Interventions
LAFI
Shubh Agrawal Northeastern University, Jialu Bao Northeastern University, Steven Holtzen Northeastern University
Pre-print
09:41
10m
Talk
Typed Abstractions for Causal Probabilistic Programming
LAFI
Theo Wang University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Dario Stein University of Oxford, Eli Bingham Broad Institute, Jack Feser Basis, Ohad Kammar University of Edinburgh, Michael Lee University of Cambridge, UK, Jeremy Yallop University of Cambridge
File Attached
09:53
10m
Talk
A Design for Massively Parallel Gibbs Sampling on the GPU via Static and Dynamic Analysis of Probabilistic Programs
LAFI
Matin Ghavami Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Martin C. Rinard Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vikash Mansinghka Massachusetts Institute of Technology
10:05
10m
Talk
A Design Proposal for GraPPL: Probabilistic Programming with Low-Level, High-Performance GPU Programmable Inference
LAFI
Karen Chung Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Elias Rojas Collins MIT, McCoy Reynolds Becker MIT, Mathieu Huot MIT, Vikash Mansinghka Massachusetts Institute of Technology