torch-xpu-profile

torch.profiler with ProfilerActivity.XPU captures CPU + XPU op timeline on Kineto. Use for "which aten::* op is slow?", "is the GPU idle?", "is decode kernel-bound?". For server-side profiling use vllm-xpu-profile; for SYCL kernel level use xpu-profile-unitrace.

CUDA -> XPU translation

CUDA	XPU
ProfilerActivity.CPU, ProfilerActivity.CUDA	ProfilerActivity.CPU, ProfilerActivity.XPU
prof.export_chrome_trace("trace.json")	identical
record_shapes=True, with_stack=True	identical
prof.key_averages().table(sort_by="cuda_time_total")	sort_by="xpu_time_total"

Quickstart

import torch
from torch.profiler import profile, ProfilerActivity, schedule
from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer

mid = "Qwen/Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct"
tok = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(mid)
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
    mid, dtype=torch.bfloat16, device_map="xpu"
).eval()
inp = tok("Tell me a joke.", return_tensors="pt").to("xpu")

# Warmup so first-run kernel compile doesn't pollute the trace
with torch.no_grad():
    model.generate(**inp, max_new_tokens=8, do_sample=False,
                   pad_token_id=tok.eos_token_id)

with profile(
    activities=[ProfilerActivity.CPU, ProfilerActivity.XPU],
    record_shapes=True,
    profile_memory=True,
    with_stack=False,
) as prof:
    with torch.no_grad():
        model.generate(**inp, max_new_tokens=64, do_sample=False,
                       pad_token_id=tok.eos_token_id)

print(prof.key_averages().table(sort_by="xpu_time_total", row_limit=20))
prof.export_chrome_trace("trace.json")

Output: trace.json (drag into https://ui.perfetto.dev) plus a top-20 ops table sorted by XPU time.

Reading the trace

1. Top of key_averages table — first 5 rows are usually 70–90% of XPU time. Top = matmul/attention -> GPU-bound (good). Top = aten::copy_ / H2D-D2H transfers -> bandwidth-bound or paying for unnecessary moves.
2. Gaps in XPU timeline — wide white bands = GPU waiting for host. Causes: tokenizer on CPU, Python overhead, per-step sync. Decode TPOT spikes correlate with these gaps.
3. Per-step decode structure — same kernel sequence per token; divergence often means KV reallocation or SWA edge effects.
4. Memory peaks (with profile_memory=True) — peak before first generated token is prefill; subsequent peaks are KV growth. Compare against model-can-it-fit prediction.

Longer-window profiling with schedule

For multi-step capture without giant files:

sched = schedule(skip_first=2, wait=1, warmup=1, active=3, repeat=1)
with profile(activities=[ProfilerActivity.CPU, ProfilerActivity.XPU],
             schedule=sched,
             on_trace_ready=lambda p: p.export_chrome_trace(
                 f"trace_step_{p.step_num}.json")) as prof:
    for step in range(10):
        with torch.no_grad():
            model.generate(**inp, max_new_tokens=16, do_sample=False,
                           pad_token_id=tok.eos_token_id)
        prof.step()

One trace per repeat -> easier to diff than one giant file.

Common errors

• ProfilerActivity.XPU not supported -> torch build doesn't include XPU profiler. Confirm torch.__version__ ends in +xpu and is recent enough.
• Empty trace / only CPU ops -> kernel launches not synced before profiler exit. Add torch.xpu.synchronize() at end of with profile(...).
• Trace > 500 MiB -> use schedule form above for short active windows.
• "Cannot find any XPU devices" mid-profile -> an op fell back to CPU. Set PYTORCH_ENABLE_XPU_FALLBACK=0 so unsupported ops error loudly.

What to do with the bottleneck

• Standard transformer op (attention, MLP, layer norm) at unsurprising time -> hardware limit for this dtype. Try a quantized path (see vllm-xpu-run Quantization).
• Memory copy / H2D-D2H -> input pipeline is the bottleneck. Move tokenizer to a background thread, use pinned memory.
• Unfamiliar dominating kernel -> SYCL-level investigation; use xpu-profile-unitrace.

Env vars

Variable	Purpose
ZE_AFFINITY_MASK	Pin to one XPU.
PYTORCH_ENABLE_XPU_FALLBACK=0	Error on CPU fallbacks instead of hiding them.
KINETO_LOG_LEVEL=INFO	Diagnose incomplete traces.

What this skill does NOT cover

• Profiling inside a running vLLM server -> vllm-xpu-profile.
• SYCL kernel level / hardware metrics -> xpu-profile-unitrace.
• Fixing a slow kernel — out of scope.

References

• PyTorch profiler tutorial: https://docs.pytorch.org/tutorials/recipes/recipes/profiler_recipe.html
• torch.profiler API: https://docs.pytorch.org/docs/stable/profiler.html
• Perfetto: https://ui.perfetto.dev