Data parallelism

Data parallelism is a form of parallelization of computing across multiple processors in parallel computing environments. Data parallelism focuses on distributing the data across different parallel computing nodes. It contrasts to task parallelism as another form of parallelism.

Description

In a multiprocessor system executing a single set of instructions (SIMD), data parallelism is achieved when each processor performs the same task on different pieces of distributed data. In some situations, a single execution thread controls operations on all pieces of data. In others, different threads control the operation, but they execute the same code.

For instance, consider a 2-processor system (CPUs A and B) in a parallel environment, and we wish to do a task on some data d. It is possible to tell CPU A to do that task on one part of d and CPU B on another part simultaneously, thereby reducing the duration of the execution. The data can be assigned using conditional statements as described below. As a specific example, consider adding two matrices. In a data parallel implementation, CPU A could add all elements from the top half of the matrices, while CPU B could add all elements from the bottom half of the matrices. Since the two processors work in parallel, the job of performing matrix addition would take one half the time of performing the same operation in serial using one CPU alone.