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Autore principale: Pham, Anh-Duy
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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Accesso online:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.16292
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author Pham, Anh-Duy
author_facet Pham, Anh-Duy
contents Python is widely used for agent-based modelling because it is accessible and has a mature scientific ecosystem, but object-per-agent execution incurs interpreter overhead that restricts the population sizes feasible in interactive modelling, calibration, and parameter sweeps. This paper presents AMBER, a Python framework that stores agent state in a Polars-backed columnar table and exposes population operations through a compact view API. The framework preserves conventional model and agent abstractions while translating common population updates into compiled column operations; behaviours that do not vectorise remain expressible through a buffered object-oriented path. We evaluate AMBER on wealth transfer, random walk, and spatial SIR benchmarks against Mesa, AgentPy, SimPy, Melodie, Agents.jl, and AMBER's own loop path, using invariant checks to verify comparable model outputs before timing. Across the tested workloads, AMBER has the lowest execution time among Python-hosted implementations and achieves speedups of up to $1118\times$ over Mesa; on the largest SIR benchmark it is also faster than the Julia-based Agents.jl implementation.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_16292
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AMBER: A Columnar Architecture for High-Performance Agent-Based Modeling in Python
Pham, Anh-Duy
Multiagent Systems
Systems and Control
Python is widely used for agent-based modelling because it is accessible and has a mature scientific ecosystem, but object-per-agent execution incurs interpreter overhead that restricts the population sizes feasible in interactive modelling, calibration, and parameter sweeps. This paper presents AMBER, a Python framework that stores agent state in a Polars-backed columnar table and exposes population operations through a compact view API. The framework preserves conventional model and agent abstractions while translating common population updates into compiled column operations; behaviours that do not vectorise remain expressible through a buffered object-oriented path. We evaluate AMBER on wealth transfer, random walk, and spatial SIR benchmarks against Mesa, AgentPy, SimPy, Melodie, Agents.jl, and AMBER's own loop path, using invariant checks to verify comparable model outputs before timing. Across the tested workloads, AMBER has the lowest execution time among Python-hosted implementations and achieves speedups of up to $1118\times$ over Mesa; on the largest SIR benchmark it is also faster than the Julia-based Agents.jl implementation.
title AMBER: A Columnar Architecture for High-Performance Agent-Based Modeling in Python
topic Multiagent Systems
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.16292