GPU
Graphics Processing Unit — a processor designed for parallel computation
A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a specialized processor originally designed for rendering graphics, now widely used for general-purpose parallel computation including machine learning, scientific simulations, and data processing.
Example
import torch
# Check if a GPU is available
print(torch.cuda.is_available()) # True
print(torch.cuda.get_device_name(0)) # e.g. "NVIDIA RTX 4090"
Key Characteristics
- Thousands of cores optimized for parallel workloads
- High memory bandwidth for moving large amounts of data
- SIMT architecture — Single Instruction, Multiple Threads