Devices and techniques for on-demand programmable atomic kernel loading are described herein. A programmable atomic unit (PAU) of a memory controller can receive an invocation of a programmable atomic operator by the memory controller. The PAU can then perform a verification on a programmable atomic operator partition for the programmable atomic operator. Here, the programmable atomic operator partition is located in a memory of the PAU. The PAU can then signal a trap in response to the verification indicating that the programmable atomic operator partition is not prepared.