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[DEV] fix(megatron-fsdp): reduce padding for grouped expert weights - #4980

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[DEV] fix(megatron-fsdp): reduce padding for grouped expert weights#4980
xuwchen wants to merge 2 commits into
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xuwchen:mfsdp_grouped_expert_padding_dev

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@xuwchen xuwchen commented May 26, 2026

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  • I, the PR author, have personally reviewed every line of this PR.

main PR: #4979

What does this PR do ?

MFSDP computes a chunk size factor (CSF) for each bucket as shape[1:].numel(), which flattens all dimensions except the first one.

For per-expert 2D expert weights:

  • linear_fc1: (2 * moe_ffn_hidden_size, hidden_size)
  • linear_fc2: (hidden_size, moe_ffn_hidden_size)

shape[1:].numel() is just the last dimension, so the CSF stays small.

For grouped 3D expert weights:

  • linear_fc1: (num_local_experts, 2 * moe_ffn_hidden_size, hidden_size)
  • linear_fc2: (num_local_experts, hidden_size, moe_ffn_hidden_size)

shape[1:].numel() becomes the full per-expert matrix size. This can make the CSF much larger than the equivalent per-expert 2D layout. When multiple expert weights share a bucket, MFSDP uses divisibility/LCM logic to choose a common CSF. The oversized CSF can force the bucket size to be padded to a much larger alignment unit, increasing AllGather traffic. In the reported configuration this matched the observed ~33% communication increase, corresponding to ~25% bucket padding.

This PR routes grouped expert weights with heterogeneous CSFs into separate buckets via a new _should_split_from_grouped_expert_bucket helper, while keeping the 2D / non-expert paths unchanged.

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@xuwchen
xuwchen requested review from a team as code owners May 26, 2026 09:01
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svcnvidia-nemo-ci marked this pull request as draft May 26, 2026 09:01
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@xuwchen
xuwchen changed the base branch from main to dev May 26, 2026 09:13

@wujingyue wujingyue left a comment

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Could you add a unit test? These algorithmic changes are easy to regress without test coverage guarding them. The unit test can be something like https://github.com/NVIDIA/Megatron-LM/pull/4835/changes#diff-f1aaffa52ab9eab0c69292e44285ebb8c9387f1c3ebd62191d82920b5817cccbR110 and doesn't have to run FSDP end-to-end.

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LGTM otherwise


is_expert_parameter = lambda n, p: ".experts." in n

def _get_csf_base(group: ParameterGroup, param: torch.nn.Parameter) -> int:

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Suggested change
def _get_csf_base(group: ParameterGroup, param: torch.nn.Parameter) -> int:
def _get_chunk_size_factor_base(group: ParameterGroup, param: torch.nn.Parameter) -> int:

Also, you only need an is_expert_param boolean instead of the entire ParameterGroup.

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Addressed in #5013 (the continuation PR). Variable naming uses the full param_chunk_size_factor. _get_csf_base is also removed and replaced by _should_split_from_grouped_expert_bucket, which takes is_expert_param: bool.

@xuwchen
xuwchen force-pushed the mfsdp_grouped_expert_padding_dev branch 2 times, most recently from 59f7018 to be381b6 Compare May 27, 2026 09:13
@xuwchen
xuwchen force-pushed the mfsdp_grouped_expert_padding_dev branch from be381b6 to 4091ee6 Compare May 27, 2026 09:31
@xuwchen
xuwchen force-pushed the mfsdp_grouped_expert_padding_dev branch from 4091ee6 to e52d7dd Compare May 27, 2026 09:34
@xuwchen
xuwchen removed request for a team May 27, 2026 12:49
@xuwchen xuwchen closed this May 27, 2026
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xuwchen commented May 27, 2026

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Continued in #5013. The original PR couldn't be reopened due to a force-push lock. The review feedback has been addressed in the new PR.

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