The NVSHMEM API
July 20, 2026
I made a tree diagram and overview of some of the most important parts of the NVSHMEM functional API. I couldn’t find a satisfactory breakdown online: hopefully you can get some use out of this!
- nvshmem_{} denotes SHMEM-compatible functions
- nvshmemx_{} are NVIDIA/GPU-specific extensions
- nvshmemi_{} refers to the lower level APIs (typically users don’t have to deal with these) that the above two function types use.
I highly recommend the demystifying NVSHMEM paper for a more comprehensive overview.