diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index cc343fe0b3..c78bed7b0f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -9,4 +9,5 @@ __pycache__/
 *.pyc
 input.txt
 env/
-venv/
\ No newline at end of file
+venv/
+.venv/
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/config/train_gpt2_1.3B.py b/config/train_gpt2_1.3B.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1988f16815
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config/train_gpt2_1.3B.py
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# config for training GPT-2 (1.3B)
+
+# these make the total batch size be ~1M
+# 8 batch size * 64 block size * 2048 grad_accum_steps = 1,048,576
+# Using strong scaling, so make grad_acc_steps multiple of maximum gpu count
+batch_size = 8
+block_size = 64
+gradient_accumulation_steps = 1 * 2048
+
+# USE FOR TESTING = ~0.25M batch size
+# batch_size = 8
+# block_size = 16
+# gradient_accumulation_steps = 1 * 2048
+
+# model - 1.3B from OPT paper table 1 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.01068)
+# # model params ~= 12 * n_layer * n_emd**2 + n_embd * vocab_size
+n_layer = 24
+n_head = 32
+n_embd = 2048
+learning_rate=2e-4
+
+# max iters
+max_iters = 10
+
+use_pccl=True
+bucket_cap_mb=32
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/patch_ddp.py b/patch_ddp.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9f0a2943cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/patch_ddp.py
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+import sys
+import torch
+import torch.distributed as dist
+from torch.distributed.algorithms.ddp_comm_hooks.default_hooks import allreduce_hook
+from mpi4py import MPI
+
+# PCCL imports
+sys.path.append("/ccs/home/keshprad/sc2025-pccl-reproducer-v2/")
+from pccl.process_groups import ProcessGroups
+from pccl.build_kernels import build
+from pccl.all_reduce import all_reduce_2D
+
+pg = None
+def get_heir_pg():
+    global pg 
+    assert pg is not None, "did you call the patch_ddp function?"
+    return pg
+
+def is_global_pg(group):
+    return (group is None) or (group == dist.group.WORLD) or (dist.get_world_size(group) == dist.get_world_size())
+
+def pccl_all_reduce_hook(group: dist.ProcessGroup, bucket: dist.GradBucket) -> torch.futures.Future[torch.Tensor]:
+    if is_global_pg(group):
+        # define input tensor - get the flattened gradient tensor from the bucket
+        input_tensor = bucket.buffer()
+        # define output tensor
+        output_tensor = torch.empty(input_tensor.size(0), 
+                                    device=input_tensor.device, 
+                                    dtype=input_tensor.dtype)
+        # pccl is blocking for now
+        all_reduce_2D(output_tensor, 
+                    input_tensor, 
+                    group=get_heir_pg(), 
+                    async_op=False,
+                    use_rh_and_rd=True,
+                    use_pccl_cpp_backend=True)
+        
+        # Create _dummy_ future and set the result
+        future = torch.futures.Future()
+        future.set_result(output_tensor)
+        return future
+    else:
+        return allreduce_hook(group, bucket)
+
+def patch_ddp(ddp_model):
+    assert dist.is_initialized()
+    assert dist.get_world_size()
+    
+    # auto-detect intra-node process group size
+    intra_node_pg_size = torch.cuda.device_count()
+    
+    # build pccl
+    # if dist.get_rank() == 0:
+    #     build()
+    #     MPI.COMM_WORLD.Barrier()
+    # else:
+    #     MPI.COMM_WORLD.Barrier()
+    #     build()
+    # build PCCL on every node in node-local NVMe
+    build()
+    MPI.COMM_WORLD.Barrier()
+    
+    # setup process groups sub-communicators
+    global pg 
+    pg = ProcessGroups(intra_node_pg_size, 
+                       dist.get_world_size() // intra_node_pg_size)
+
+    # register communication hook with the DDP process group as state
+    ddp_model.register_comm_hook(ddp_model.process_group, pccl_all_reduce_hook)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/scripts/create_python_env_frontier.sh b/scripts/create_python_env_frontier.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..a34fa8e63e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/create_python_env_frontier.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+RED='\033[0;31m'
+GREEN='\033[0;32m'
+NC='\033[0m' # No Color
+
+SCRATCH=/lustre/orion/csc547/scratch/keshprad
+WRKSPC=${SCRATCH}/nanoGPT
+# everything will be installed in $WRKSPC
+
+ENV_NAME=".venv"
+# this is the name of your python venv, change if needed
+
+cd $WRKSPC
+echo -e "${RED}Creating Python Environment in $WRKSPC:${GREEN}"
+
+# Load modules
+module reset
+# load modules
+rocm_version=6.4.1
+module load PrgEnv-cray
+module load rocm/${rocm_version}
+module load cray-mpich/8.1.32
+module load cpe/25.03
+module load craype-accel-amd-gfx90a
+module load cray-python/3.11.7
+module load ninja
+module list
+
+#Step 1 - activate your venv
+python -m venv $WRKSPC/$ENV_NAME
+source $WRKSPC/$ENV_NAME/bin/activate
+# upgrade pip
+pip install -U pip
+
+echo -e "${RED}Installing Dependencies:${GREEN}"
+#Step 2 - install torch
+pip install torch==2.8.0 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/rocm6.4
+pip install --upgrade numpy
+
+#Step 3 build mpi4py
+MPICC="cc -shared" pip install --no-cache-dir --no-binary=mpi4py mpi4py
+
+#Step 4 - install other packages
+pip install numpy transformers datasets tiktoken wandb tqdm
+
+
+#Step 5 - AWS-OFI-RCCL plugin
+# skip for now as I already have it installed
+# echo "Installing RCCL Plugin"
+# cd ${SCRATCH}
+# git clone --recursive https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/aws-ofi-rccl 
+# cd aws-ofi-rccl
+# libfabric_path=/opt/cray/libfabric/1.22.0
+# ./autogen.sh
+# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/rocm-$rocm_version/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+# PLUG_PREFIX=$PWD
+# CC=hipcc CFLAGS=-I/opt/rocm-$rocm_version/include ./configure \
+# 	--with-libfabric=$libfabric_path --with-rccl=/opt/rocm-$rocm_version --enable-trace \
+# 	--prefix=$PLUG_PREFIX --with-hip=/opt/rocm-$rocm_version --with-mpi=$MPICH_DIR
+# make
+# make install
+# cd ..
+
+echo -e "${RED}Your Python Environment is ready. To activate it run the following commands in the SAME order:${NC}"
+echo -e "${GREEN}source $WRKSPC/$ENV_NAME/bin/activate${NC}"
+echo ""
+echo -e "${NC}"
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/scripts/get_rank.sh b/scripts/get_rank.sh
index 881bdc4a0e..4e017efc2e 100755
--- a/scripts/get_rank.sh
+++ b/scripts/get_rank.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 # select_gpu_device wrapper script
 export RANK=${SLURM_PROCID}
+export LOCAL_RANK=${SLURM_LOCALID}
 exec $*
diff --git a/scripts/run_frontier.sh b/scripts/run_frontier.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4f024ba67e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/run_frontier.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#SBATCH -q normal
+#SBATCH -J nanogpt
+#SBATCH --gpu-bind none
+#SBATCH -t 00:10:00
+#SBATCH -A csc547
+#SBATCH --exclusive
+#SBATCH -C nvme
+# Run like: sbatch run_frontier16.sh
+
+echo "start run: $(date)"
+
+export SCRATCH="/lustre/orion/csc547/scratch/keshprad"
+export WRKSPC="${SCRATCH}/nanoGPT"
+export HF_HOME="${SCRATCH}/.cache/hf"
+export TRITON_CACHE_DIR="${SCRATCH}/.cache/triton"
+cd $WRKSPC
+
+# load modules
+rocm_version="6.4.1"
+module load PrgEnv-cray
+module load rocm/${rocm_version}
+module load cray-mpich/8.1.32
+module load cpe/25.03
+module load craype-accel-amd-gfx90a
+module load cray-python/3.11.7
+module load ninja
+module list
+export CXX=CC 
+export CC=cc
+
+# activate env
+source ${WRKSPC}/.venv/bin/activate
+
+NNODES=$SLURM_JOB_NUM_NODES
+GPUS=$(( NNODES * 8 ))
+## master addr and port
+# setting variables for torch.distributed
+export MASTER_ADDR=$(hostname)
+export MASTER_PORT=29500
+export WORLD_SIZE=$GPUS
+export OMP_NUM_THREADS=7
+
+## some RCCL env variables
+export FI_CXI_ATS=0
+export HSA_FORCE_FINE_GRAIN_PCIE=1
+export NCCL_CROSS_NIC=1
+export NCCL_SOCKET_IFNAME=hsn0
+export CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0
+export CUDA_DEVICE_MAX_CONNECTIONS=1
+# AWS-OFI-RCCL
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${SCRATCH}/aws-ofi-rccl/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
+
+# mpich gpu support
+export MPICH_GPU_SUPPORT_ENABLED=1
+export MPICH_OFI_VERBOSE=1
+export MPICH_OFI_NIC_POLICY="USER"
+export MPICH_OFI_NIC_MAPPING="0:0-1; 1:2-3; 2:4-5; 3:6-7"
+
+# fi variables
+export FI_CXI_RDZV_THRESHOLD=0
+export FI_CXI_RDZV_GET_MIN=0
+export FI_CXI_RDZV_EAGER_SIZE=0 
+export MPICH_OFI_CXI_COUNTER_VERBOSE=1
+# collecting counter data
+export MPICH_OFI_CXI_COUNTER_REPORT=5
+export HSA_ENABLE_SDMA=0
+
+# other
+export MPICH_GPU_SUPPORT_ENABLED=1
+export GPU_MAX_HW_QUEUES=1
+export OFI_NCCL_USE_IPV6_TCP=1
+
+MASK_0="0x00fe000000000000" # Cores 49-55
+MASK_1="0xfe00000000000000" # Cores 57-64
+MASK_2="0x0000000000fe0000" # Cores 17-23
+MASK_3="0x00000000fe000000" # Cores 25-31
+MASK_4="0x00000000000000fe" # Cores 1-7
+MASK_5="0x000000000000fe00" # Cores 9-15
+MASK_6="0x000000fe00000000" # Cores 33-39
+MASK_7="0x0000fe0000000000" # Cores 41-47
+CPU_MASK="--cpu-bind=mask_cpu:${MASK_0},${MASK_1},${MASK_2},${MASK_3},${MASK_4},${MASK_5},${MASK_6},${MASK_7}"
+
+
+SCRIPT="scripts/get_rank.sh python -u train.py config/train_gpt2_1.3B.py"
+# log start date
+echo "start nanoGPT: $(date)"
+run_cmd="srun -N $NNODES -n $GPUS --ntasks-per-node=8 -c 7 ${CPU_MASK} --mem-bind=map_mem:3,3,1,1,0,0,2,2 $SCRIPT"
+echo $run_cmd
+eval $run_cmd
+# log end date
+echo "end nanoGPT: $(date)"
+
+echo "end run: $(date)"
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/train.py b/train.py
index c8882fedb6..2d55963628 100644
--- a/train.py
+++ b/train.py
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@
 from axonn.intra_layer import optimize_communication
 
 from model import GPTConfig, GPT
+from patch_ddp import patch_ddp
+import csv
 
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # default config values designed to train a gpt2 (124M) on OpenWebText
@@ -75,15 +77,8 @@
 device = 'cuda' # examples: 'cpu', 'cuda', 'cuda:0', 'cuda:1' etc., or try 'mps' on macbooks
 dtype = 'bfloat16' if torch.cuda.is_available() and torch.cuda.is_bf16_supported() else 'float16' # 'float32', 'bfloat16', or 'float16', the latter will auto implement a GradScaler
 compile = True # use PyTorch 2.0 to compile the model to be faster
-
-# model parallelism args
-G_intra_r=1
-G_intra_c=1
-G_intra_d=1
-
-# gradient checkpointing
-gradient_checkpointing=False
-
+use_pccl = False
+bucket_cap_mb=None # uses default value from PyTorch DDP
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 config_keys = [k for k,v in globals().items() if not k.startswith('_') and isinstance(v, (int, float, bool, str))]
 exec(open('configurator.py').read()) # overrides from command line or config file
@@ -214,6 +209,7 @@ def get_batch(split):
     model.crop_block_size(block_size)
     model_args['block_size'] = block_size # so that the checkpoint will have the right value
 model.to(device)
+n_params = model.get_num_params()
 
 # initialize a GradScaler. If enabled=False scaler is a no-op
 scaler = torch.cuda.amp.GradScaler(enabled=(dtype == 'float16'))
@@ -233,8 +229,12 @@ def get_batch(split):
     model = torch.compile(model) # requires PyTorch 2.0
 
 # wrap model into DDP container
-#if ddp:
-#    model = DDP(model, device_ids=[local_rank], process_group=ax.comm_handle.coll_nccl_comm)
+if ddp:
+    model = DDP(model, device_ids=[ddp_local_rank], bucket_cap_mb=bucket_cap_mb)
+    
+    # use pccl - register comm hook for pccl allreduce
+    if use_pccl:
+        patch_ddp(model)
 
 # helps estimate an arbitrarily accurate loss over either split using many batches
 @torch.no_grad()
@@ -256,7 +256,7 @@ def estimate_loss():
 def get_lr(it):
     # 1) linear warmup for warmup_iters steps
     if it < warmup_iters:
-        return learning_rate * it / warmup_iters
+        return learning_rate * (it + 1) / (warmup_iters + 1)
     # 2) if it > lr_decay_iters, return min learning rate
     if it > lr_decay_iters:
         return min_lr
@@ -278,6 +278,22 @@ def get_lr(it):
 raw_model = model # row model and model are the same in axonn
 running_mfu = -1.0
 
+# Setup benchmark data collection
+data_folder = f"./benchmark/pccl-ddp"
+os.makedirs(data_folder, exist_ok=True)
+
+# Create initial csv file
+gpu_count = ddp_world_size if ddp else 1
+slurm_job_id = os.environ.get('SLURM_JOB_ID', 'unknown')
+all_reduce_library = "pccl" if use_pccl else "xccl"
+csv_filename = os.path.join(data_folder, f"gpt2-{n_params/1e9:.2f}B_{all_reduce_library}_gpus_{gpu_count}_slurm_{slurm_job_id}.csv")
+if master_process:
+    with open(csv_filename, 'w') as f:
+        writer = csv.writer(f)
+        # Write the header
+        header = ["gpu_count", "slurm_job_id", "model_size", "global_batch_size", "iter", "loss", "time (s)", "memory (GB)", "max_mem (GB)"]
+        writer.writerow(header)
+        f.flush()
 
 while True:
 
@@ -351,8 +367,13 @@ def get_lr(it):
             running_mfu = mfu if running_mfu == -1.0 else 0.9*running_mfu + 0.1*mfu
         memory = torch.cuda.memory_allocated() / 1024 / 1024 / 1024
         peak = torch.cuda.max_memory_allocated() / 1024 / 1024 / 1024
-        if torch.distributed.get_rank() == 0:
-            print(f"iter {iter_num}: loss {lossf:.4f}, time {dt*1000:.2f}ms, mfu {running_mfu*100:.2f}%, mem = {memory:.2f} GB | max mem = {peak} GB")
+        print(f"iter {iter_num}: loss {lossf:.4f}, time {dt*1000:.2f}ms, mfu {running_mfu*100:.2f}%, mem = {memory:.2f} GB, max mem = {peak:.2f} GB")
+        
+        # master_process logs to CSV file
+        with open(csv_filename, 'a') as f:
+            writer = csv.writer(f)
+            writer.writerow([gpu_count, slurm_job_id, f"{n_params/1e9:.2f}B", tokens_per_iter, iter_num, lossf, dt, memory, peak])
+            f.flush()
     iter_num += 1
     local_iter_num += 1