Windows builds

[apasarkar]

Hi Jax Team,

I'm hoping to deploy some jax code I wrote in an environment with a Windows OS + GPU. I know that windows is not currently supported in this setting, but I wanted to ask if this support might be provided sometime soon. It would be extremely useful.

More broadly, any updated guidance on how to best deploy jax code on windows would be greatly appreciated!

[hawkinsp]

ask if this support might be provided sometime soon

There are no plans to do so.

We support only:

• Windows CPU
• Windows GPU using WSL2 (i.e., the Linux build)

Can one of those work for you?

In general we would probably accept PRs to make Windows GPU work, but it will be up to the community to fix what is needed and to keep it working. Make sense?

[apasarkar]

Hi @hawkinsp thank you for the fast reply!

I am working on a high speed imaging application, where we need a windows OS to do the imaging (but also need jax to perform data analysis fast enough), so pure windows build would be ideal.

I wanted to ask if the decision to not support jaxlib builds for windows cuda is due to a known technical issue (for eg, some serious incompatibility between windows cuda and the libraries used for jaxlib) or if it is mainly a bandwidth/priorities constraint. I might try to play around with building it on my own accordingly.

I have seen some efforts to build gpu jaxlib in the past on windows, but nothing recent. Please let me know what you think - thanks again!

[hawkinsp]

I wanted to ask if the decision to not support jaxlib builds for windows cuda is due to a known technical issue (for eg, some serious incompatibility between windows cuda and the libraries used for jaxlib) or if it is mainly a bandwidth/priorities constraint. I might try to play around with building it on my own accordingly.

I have seen some efforts to build gpu jaxlib in the past on windows, but nothing recent. Please let me know what you think - thanks again!

It is indeed a matter of priorities. There is nothing fundamental that prevents it, although I suspect that it would be a moderate engineering project to revive the support and keep it working. WSL2 is attractive as a solution because that allows us to support it at almost zero cost.