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Normalize ZeRO-3 DeepCompile grad dtype before reduction#8038

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Normalize ZeRO-3 DeepCompile grad dtype before reduction#8038
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tohtana:tohtana/fix/deepcompile-zero3-grad-dtype-buckets

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@tohtana tohtana commented May 30, 2026

Some backward kernels produce gradients in their computation dtype, not necessarily in the parameter storage dtype. For example, if a backward path accumulates or promotes math in fp32, a parameter stored as bf16 can still receive an fp32 raw gradient from that backward computation.

In normal PyTorch execution, that raw gradient reaches the leaf-gradient accumulation step, which stores it according to the tensor's expected grad dtype. ZeRO-3 DeepCompile intercepts the raw compiled-backward gradient before that leaf accumulation boundary. The reducer was assuming the raw gradient dtype was already the expected leaf grad dtype, so it could select an fp32 communication bucket even when the ZeRO grad partition storage was bf16.

To address this, this PR changes dc.reduce_grad's behavior to match PyTorch's leaf-gradient dtype contract. ZeRO-3 registration now records the expected grad dtype for each parameter, and reduce_grad normalizes raw compiled-backward gradients to that dtype before selecting the communication bucket.

This follows the documented grad_dtype behavior, including preserving explicit grad_dtype=None opt-outs: https://docs.pytorch.org/docs/main/generated/torch.sparse.semi_structured.SparseSemiStructuredTensorCUSPARSELT.html#torch.sparse.semi_structured.SparseSemiStructuredTensorCUSPARSELT.grad_dtype

@tohtana tohtana requested review from loadams and tjruwase as code owners May 30, 2026 06:13
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Comment thread csrc/compile/z3.cpp Outdated
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Tanaka <mtanaka@anyscale.com>
@tohtana tohtana force-pushed the tohtana/fix/deepcompile-zero3-grad-dtype-buckets branch from be9d1d0 to 2c15ad9 Compare May 30, 2026 06:21
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