The advent of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) has revolutionized the field of machine learning, offering a novel paradigm for learning on graph-structured data. Unlike traditional neural networks, GNNs are capable of capturing complex relationships and dependencies inherent in graph data, making them particularly suited for a wide range of applications including social network analysis, molecular chemistry, and network security. The impact of GNNs in these domains is profound, enabling more accurate models and predictions, and thereby contributing significantly to advancements in these fields. GNNs, with their unique structure and operation, present new computational challenges compared to conventional neural networks. This requires comprehensive benchmarking and a thorough characterization of GNNs to obtain insight into their computational requirements and to identify potential performance bottlenecks. In this thesis, we aim to develop a better understanding of how GNNs interact with the underlying hardware and will leverage this knowledge as we design specialized accelerators and develop new optimizations, leading to more efficient and faster GNN computations. Synthesizing these insights and optimizations, we design a state-of-the-art hardware accelerator capable of efficiently handling various GNN workloads. Our accelerator architecture is built on our characterization of GNN computational demands, providing clear motivation for our approach. Furthermore, we extend our exploration to emerging GNN workloads in the domain of graph neural networks. This exploration into novel models underlines our comprehensive approach, as we strive to enable accelerators that are not just performant, but also versatile, able to adapt to the evolving landscape of graph computing.

图神经网络在图结构数据上学习提供了一种新颖的机器学习范例，能够捕捉图数据中的复杂关系和依赖性，从而在社交网络分析、分子化学和网络安全等领域具有重要的影响。本论文旨在深入研究GNN与底层硬件的交互方式，并设计专用加速器和新型优化方法，以实现更高效和更快速的GNN计算。我们基于对GNN计算需求的特征化构建了先进的硬件加速器结构，同时扩展了对图神经网络领域中新型模型的探索，旨在提供不仅高性能而且能适应图计算发展的多功能加速器。

图计算加速器的实现