Acceleration of Grammatical Evolution Using Graphics Processing Units

Several papers show that symbolic regression is suitable for data analysis and prediction in financial markets. Grammatical Evolution (GE), a grammar-based form of Genetic Programming (GP), has been successfully applied in solving various tasks including symbolic regression. However, the computational effort to calculate the fitness of a solution in GP can often limit the area of possible application and/or the extent of experimentation undertaken. 

This paper deals with utilizing mainstream graphics processing units (GPU) for acceleration of GE solving symbolic regression. GPU optimization details are discussed and the NVCC compiler is analyzed.  We design an effective mapping of the algorithm to the CUDA framework, and in so doing must tackle constraints of the GPU approach, such as the PCI-express bottleneck and main memory transactions.