SOL-ExecBench: Speed-of-Light Benchmarking for Real-World GPU Kernels Against Hardware Limits

Edward Lin, Sahil Modi, Siva Kumar Sastry Hari, Qijing Huang, Zhifan Ye et al.|March 19, 2026arXiv

Key Takeaway

Instead of comparing kernels to other software implementations, this benchmark measures how close optimized kernels get to theoretical hardware limits—giving AI systems a clear, unchanging target for optimization rather than a moving baseline.

Summary

SOL-ExecBench is a benchmark for evaluating GPU kernel optimization that measures performance against hardware limits rather than software baselines. It includes 235 CUDA kernels from real AI models and uses analytically derived 'Speed-of-Light' bounds to create fixed optimization targets, enabling fair evaluation of AI systems that generate and optimize code.

evaluation efficiency agents

Key Terms

cuda-kernels speed-of-light-bounds kernel-optimization sandboxed-execution reward-hacking