An On-Demand Fast Parallel Pseudo Random Number Generator with Applications

The use of manycore architectures and accelerators, such as GPUs, with good programmability has allowed them to be deployed for vital computational work. The ability to use randomness in computation is known to help in several situations. For such computations to be made possible on a general purpose computer, a source of randomness, or in general a pseudo random generator (PRNG), is essential. However, most of the PRNGs currently available on GPUs suffer from some basic drawbacks that we highlight in this paper. It is of high interest therefore to develop a parallel, quality PRNG that also works in an on demand model. In this paper we investigate a CPU+GPU hybrid technique to create an efficient PRNG. The basic technique we apply is that of random walks on expander graphs. Unlike existing generators available in the GPU programming environment, our generator can produce random numbers on demand as opposed to a one-time generation. Our approach produces 0.07 GNumbers per second. The quality of our generator is tested with industry standard tests. We also demonstrate two applications of our PRNG. We apply our PRNG to design a list ranking algorithm which demonstrates the on-demand nature of the algorithm and a Monte Carlo simulation which shows the high quality of our generator.