Intel GPU support?

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dear Lightning team, @lantiga, @Borda,

Can you please prioritize Intel GPU support on your development roadmap?

My students and I have been waiting _years_ for Lightning support on Intel GPUs. I find it disappointing that this hardware remains unsupported despite being fully integrated in PyTorch itself since October 2024. Due to these continual delays, I have had to start removing Lightning from teaching materials, as well as discourage students from using it, for the simple reason that Lightning prevents students from using the latest hardware on our academic cluster here in Cambridge. More generally, I think not supporting features that are supported natively by PyTorch is frustrating and makes me question the value of higher-level frameworks. I think such frameworks should _expand_ support, if anything, not reduce it.

There have been various attempts such as #17700 #16834 #20349. I don't understand why these were closed and/or did not receive more internal support.

Could your team please prioritize this?

We are happy to help test a beta if that would speed things up.

cc @lantiga @borda @justusschock

Start by reviewing the prior Intel GPU discussions in issues #17700, #16834, and #20349, then compare Lightning's hardware support with PyTorch's Intel GPU support. The request is complete when Lightning has an agreed implementation scope and supports Intel GPUs, but this issue does not identify files, tests, or a concrete change.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.