aweSOM: a CPU/GPU-accelerated Self-organizing Map and Statistically Combined Ensemble Framework for Machine-learning Clustering Analysis

We introduce aweSOM, an open-source Python package for machine learning (ML) clustering and classification, using a Self-organizing Maps (SOM) algorithm that incorporates CPU/GPU acceleration to accommodate large (N > 106, where N is the number of data points), multidimensional datasets. aweSOM consists of two main modules, one that handles the initialization and training of the SOM, and another that stacks the results of multiple SOM realizations to obtain more statistically robust clusters. Existing Python-based SOM implementations (e.g., POPSOM, Yuan (2018); MiniSom, Vettigli (2018); sklearn-som) primarily serve as proof-of-concept demonstrations, optimized for smaller datasets, but lacking scalability for large, multidimensional data. aweSOM provides a solution for this gap in capability, with good performance scaling up to ~ 108 individual points, and capable of utilizing multiple features per point. We compare the code performance against the legacy implementations it is based on, and find a 10-100x speed up, as well as significantly improved memory efficiency, due to several built-in optimizations.