FEAT: Add Icicle GPU-Accelleration to Plonk Prover behind build tag

README.md

@@ -116,6 +116,32 @@ func main() {
 
 ```
 
+### GPU Support
+
+#### Icicle Library
+
+The following schemes and curves support experimental use of Ingomyama's Icicle GPU library for low level zk-SNARK primitives such as MSM, NTT, and polynomial operations:
+
+- [x] [Groth16](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/260)
+
+instantiated with the following curve(s)
+
+- [x] BN254
+
+To use GPUs, add the `icicle` buildtag to your build/run commands, e.g. `go run -tags=icicle main.go`.
+
+You can then toggle on or off icicle acceleration by providing the `WithIcicleAcceleration` backend ProverOption:
+
+```go
+    // toggle on
+    proofIci, err := groth16.Prove(ccs, pk, secretWitness, backend.WithIcicleAcceleration())
+
+    // toggle off
+    proof, err := groth16.Prove(ccs, pk, secretWitness)
+```
+
+For more information about prerequisites see the [Icicle repo](https://github.com/ingonyama-zk/icicle).
+
 ## Citing
 
 If you use `gnark` in your research a citation would be appreciated.

backend/backend.go

@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ type ProverConfig struct {
 	HashToFieldFn  hash.Hash
 	ChallengeHash  hash.Hash
 	KZGFoldingHash hash.Hash
+	Accelerator    string
 }
 
 // NewProverConfig returns a default ProverConfig with given prover options opts
@@ -122,6 +123,19 @@ func WithProverKZGFoldingHashFunction(hFunc hash.Hash) ProverOption {
 	}
 }
 
+// WithIcicleAcceleration requests to use [ICICLE] GPU proving backend for the
+// prover. This option requires that the program is compiled with `icicle` build
+// tag and the ICICLE dependencies are properly installed. See [ICICLE] for
+// installation description.
+//
+// [ICICLE]: https://github.com/ingonyama-zk/icicle
+func WithIcicleAcceleration() ProverOption {
+	return func(pc *ProverConfig) error {
+		pc.Accelerator = "icicle"
+		return nil
+	}
+}
+
 // VerifierOption defines option for altering the behavior of the verifier. See
 // the descriptions of functions returning instances of this type for
 // implemented options.

backend/groth16/bn254/icicle/doc.go

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+// Package icicle_bn254 implements ICICLE acceleration for BN254 Groth16 backend.
+package icicle_bn254