Advance could boost recommendation algorithms and internet searches Researchers develop advance that could boost recommendation algorithms and internet searches. March 9, 2021 Graphs -- data structures that show relationships among objects -- are highly versatile. It's easy to imagine a graph depicting a social media network's web of connections. But graphs are also used in programs as diverse as content recommendation (what to watch on Netflix?) and navigation (what's the quickest route to the beach?). As Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Ajay Brahmakshatriya summarizes, "graphs are basically everywhere." Brahmakshatriya has developed software to run graph applications more efficiently on a wide range of computer hardware. The software extends GraphIt, a state-of-the-art graph programming language, to run on graphics processing units (GPUs) hardware that processes many data streams in parallel. The advance could accelerate graph analysis, especially for applications that benefit from a GPU's parallelism, such as recommendation algorithms.