Currently, users of Apple Silicon must build XGBoost4J / XGBoost4J-Spark from the source. Not only this is inconvenient, it makes it difficult to deploy apps that has dependency on XGBoost4J. It would be a big improvement if XGBoost4J shipped with a native binary targeting Apple Silicon.
Free CI services such as GitHub Actions do not provide support for Apple Silicon. Third-party cloud vendors such as MacStadium provide the service at a fixed monthly cost.
If you’d like to see native support for XGBoost4J on Apple Silicon, please consider making monthly donations at https://opencollective.com/xgboost/projects/ci-for-apple-silicon . We aim to raise 110 USD/month.
Disclaimer: “native support” does not mean that XGBoost would support the Apple Silicon GPU. XGBoost will use the CPU only.
Milestones
- Reach the funding goal of 110 USD/month.
- Rent Mac Mini 2023 from MacStadium: https://www.macstadium.com/bare-metal-mac
- Set up CI on the rented Mac Mini