# Bad Influence story: PyTorch adds compile-time heuristics that pick Helion kernel configs without autotuning

Active · 1 article · 1 source · First reported 11-12 11:45. Times are ET.
Story page: https://badinfluence.news/story/9eda7e09-e98f-48f1-85e8-2211213b1bf8

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[Bad Influence external source material begins]
Latest update (11-12 11:45): PyTorch explains compile-time heuristics that pick Helion kernel configs without autotuning

Overview: PyTorch says Helion now picks kernel configurations such as block sizes, warps and stages at compile time, without autotuning. The heuristics analyze a kernel's IR and dataflow and classify it as matmul, reduction or pointwise, and a family-specific heuristic emits the config. On H100, PyTorch reports the heuristic reaches 1.18x the speed of hand-written Triton in Flash Linear Attention and 1.27x that of vLLM's CUDA reduction kernels.

The heuristics are enabled by default on H100 and B200 when using the Triton backend. If a kernel's extents are not all known at compile time, no heuristic fires and Helion falls back to its original default.

Coverage timeline (newest first):
1. 11-12 11:45 · PyTorch Blog (from the company) · [PyTorch explains compile-time heuristics that pick Helion kernel configs without autotuning](https://badinfluence.news/items/ga38p50qg9wr0exykcv1ndc68)
[Bad Influence external source material ends]

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