# KernelArc: A Multi-Agent Framework for GPU Kernel Optimization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.17071 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17071/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [KernelBench: Can LLMs Write Efficient GPU Kernels?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10517/) (2025)
- [Ansor: Generating High-Performance Tensor Programs for Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06762/) (2020)
- [CORAL: Towards Autonomous Multi-Agent Evolution for Open-Ended Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01658/) (2026)
- [AccelOpt: A Self-Improving LLM Agentic System for AI Accelerator Kernel Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15915/) (2025)
- [AutoKernel: Autonomous GPU Kernel Optimization via Iterative Agent-Driven Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21331/) (2026)
- [Autocomp: A Powerful and Portable Code Optimizer for Tensor Accelerators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18574/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present KernelArc, a multi-agent framework for autonomous GPU kernel optimization across heterogeneous workloads. Strategy-specialized agents run in parallel and coordinate through conclusions-only shared memory, a deterministic benchmark guard, and read-only cross-agent state with plateau-triggered drafting. We evaluate KernelArc on NVIDIA H100 and B200 GPUs using category-representative SOL-ExecBench workloads. The resulting implementations span custom BF16 GEMM, static cuBLASLt Expert-API configuration tables, fused mixture-of-experts backward, shape-gated decoder-layer fusion, native NVFP4 grouped-query attention, and paged prefill attention. In the public SOL-ExecBench leaderboard snapshot recorded on August~20, 2026, KernelArc ranked first on every representative L1, L2, Quantization, and FlashInfer task evaluated. The trajectories support the paper's central motivation: shared multi-agent search can broaden exploration and reach stronger incumbents within a fixed candidate budget, while the value of individual coordination features depends on the kernel and optimization stage.