SYCL
SYCL (pronounced 'sickle') is a high-level, cross-platform programming model for heterogeneous computing, enabling single-source C++ code to run on a variety of accelerators like GPUs, FPGAs, and CPUs. It builds on standard C++ and OpenCL to provide a modern, template-based abstraction for parallel programming, allowing developers to write portable code without vendor-specific extensions. SYCL simplifies the development of performance-critical applications by managing data movement and kernel execution across different hardware backends.
Developers should learn SYCL when building high-performance computing (HPC) applications, machine learning workloads, or scientific simulations that require efficient execution on heterogeneous systems, such as those with GPUs or FPGAs. It is particularly useful for projects needing portability across different hardware vendors (e.g., NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) while maintaining a single codebase in C++, reducing the complexity of managing multiple low-level APIs like CUDA or OpenCL directly.