GPUs have been called the rare Earth metals - even the gold - of artificial intelligence, because they're foundational for today's generative AI era.
Three technical reasons, and many stories, explain why that's so. Each reason has multiple facets well worth exploring, but at a high level:
GPUs employ parallel processing.
GPU systems scale up to supercomputing heights.
The GPU software stack for AI is broad and deep.
The net result is GPUs perform technical calculations faster and with greater energy efficiency than CPUs. That means they deliver leading performance for AI training and inference as well as gains across a wide array of applications that use accelerated computing.
In its recent report on AI, Stanford's Human-Centered AI group provided some context. GPU performance has increased roughly 7,000 times since 2003 and price per performance is 5,600 times greater, it reported.
A 2023 report captured the steep rise in GPU performance and price/performance. The report also cited analysis from Epoch, an independent research group that measures and forecasts AI advances.
GPUs are the dominant computing platform for accelerating machine learning workloads, and most (if not all) of the biggest models over the last five years have been trained on GPUs [they have] thereby centrally contributed to the recent progress in AI, Epoch said on its site.
A 2020 study assessing AI technology for the U.S. government drew similar conclusions.
We expect [leading-edge] AI chips are one to three orders of magnitude more cost-effective than leading-node CPUs when counting production and operating costs, it said.
NVIDIA GPUs have increased performance on AI inference 1,000x in the last ten years, said Bill Dally, the company's chief scientist in a keynote at Hot Chips, an annual gathering of semiconductor and systems engineers.
ChatGPT Spread the News ChatGPT provided a powerful example of how GPUs are great for AI. The large language model (LLM), trained and run on thousands of NVIDIA GPUs, runs generative AI services used by more than 100 million people.
Since its 2018 launch, MLPerf, the industry-standard benchmark for AI, has provided numbers that detail the leading performance of NVIDIA GPUs on both AI training and inference.
For example, NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips swept the latest round of inference tests. NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM, inference software released since that test, delivers up to an 8x boost in performance and more than a 5x reduction in energy use and total cost of ownership. Indeed, NVIDIA GPUs have won every round of MLPerf training and inference tests since the benchmark was released in 2019.
In February, NVIDIA GPUs delivered leading results for inference, serving up thousands of inferences per second on the most demanding models in the STAC-ML Markets benchmark, a key technology performance gauge for the financial services industry.
A RedHat software engineering team put it succinctly in a blog: GPUs have become the foundation of artificial intelligence.
AI Under the Hood A brief look under the hood shows why GPUs and AI make a powerful pairing.
An AI model, also called a neural network, is essentially a mathematical lasagna, made from layer upon layer of linear algebra equations. Each equation represents the likelihood that one piece of data is related to another.
For their part, GPUs pack thousands of cores, tiny calculators working in parallel to slice through the math that makes up an AI model. This, at a high level, is how AI computing works.
Highly Tuned Tensor Cores Over time, NVIDIA's engineers have tuned GPU cores to the evolving needs of AI models. The latest GPUs include Tensor Cores that are 60x more powerful than the first-generation designs for processing the matrix math neural networks use.
In addition, NVIDIA Hopper Tensor Core GPUs include a Transformer Engine that can automatically adjust to the optimal precision needed to process transformer models, the class of neural networks that spawned generative AI.
Along the way, each GPU generation has packed more memory and optimized techniques to store an entire AI model in a single GPU or set of GPUs.
Models Grow, Systems Expand The complexity of AI models is expanding a whopping 10x a year.
The current state-of-the-art LLM, GPT4, packs more than a trillion parameters, a metric of its mathematical density. That's up from less than 100 million parameters for a popular LLM in 2018.
In a recent talk at Hot Chips, NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally described how single-GPU performance on AI inference expanded 1,000x in the last decade. GPU systems have kept pace by ganging up on the challenge. They scale up to supercomputers, thanks to their fast NVLink interconnects and NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networks.
For example, the DGX GH200, a large-memory AI supercomputer, combines up to 256 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips into a single data-center-sized GPU with 144 terabytes of shared memory.
Each GH200 superchip is a single server with 72 Arm Neoverse CPU cores and four petaflops of AI performance. A new four-way Grace Hopper systems configuration puts in a single compute node a whopping 288 Arm cores and 16 petaflops of AI performance with up to 2.3 terabytes of high-speed memory.
And NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs announced in November pack up to 288 gigabytes of the latest HBM3e memory technology.
Software Covers the Waterfront An expanding ocean of GPU software has evolved since 2007 to enable every facet of AI, from deep-tech features to high-level applications.
The NVIDIA AI platform includes hundreds of software libraries and apps. The CUDA programming language and the cuDNN-X library for deep learning provide a base on top of which developers have created software like NVIDIA NeMo, a framework to let users build, customize and run inference on their o
North America Stories
14/11/2026
Longtime MLB Network employee David Maybrown passed away Thursday at the age of 57. David joined MLB Network in 2009 shortly after its launch, beginning as an i...
14/11/2026
Marcelo Dai's Live Session Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
Artist takes viewers on an immersive journe...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Newest Lenses, Horizon Anamorphic Seminar & Guided Lens Character Experience Highlight Creative Possibilities
At the 2026 Toru CAMERIMAGE Film Festival, ZEISS...
14/11/2026
Sonnet Announces Black Friday Sale on Select Products
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
WHAT: Sonnet Technologies is having a sale on a select...
14/11/2026
Berklee Alumni Shine at the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards This year's winners included songwriters, engineers, and performers who contributed to acclaimed reco...
13/11/2026
The UIM E1 Series wraps its third season this week with the Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP, Nov. 11-14, on Biscayne Bay at the Miami Seaplane Base on Watson Island...
13/11/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/11/2026
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone will headline entertainment for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles St...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone, a 7th order ambisonic microphone array that captures spatial audio for immersive video prod...
13/11/2026
SMPTE has announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infrastructure and communications technology for the Solutions Hub at t...
13/11/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced the theme and program focus for the 2027 HPA Tech Retreat, which takes place Feb. 14-18, 2027, in La ...
13/11/2026
Football Manager 27 Touch is available on Apple Arcade starting today. The game ...
13/11/2026
MotoGP has announced a two-year media rights agreement with ESPN covering the Un...
13/11/2026
Apple Sports, the free iPhone app, has added the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to its lineup of supported sports, in time for Saturday's UFC 334. The...
13/11/2026
The NBA and Fanatics Studios, the joint venture between Fanatics and entertainme...
13/11/2026
ESPN held its annual EDGE Innovation Conference last night and offered up an ove...
13/11/2026
Regional sports network gives Ithaca College, SUNY Cortland students a platform to thrive
One of the biggest games in Division III college football will be pla...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Blue Lucy, the workflow orchestration and integration platform for broadcasters, rights owners and localisation companies, today announced an integration with c...
13/11/2026
Krotos announces Black Friday offers on Studio Pro and Studio Max
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
First-year annual plans start at US$195.99...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
New 7th order ambisonic microphone with 108 MEMS...
13/11/2026
Meet the Berklee Student Setting Planetary Motion to Music With his compositional platform SoniKosmos, Javier Roqueni aims to make the universe the ultimate i...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud company, today announced a partnership with Golden Times Media Technology (stock code 920021.BJ), a Beijing-based media and tech...
13/11/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, together with its Malaysian partner, Cedar ...
13/11/2026
SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infra...
13/11/2026
iWedia, a global leader in connected TV software solutions, will present its software-first approach to DRAM optimization at Android TV APAC Summit 2026 in Bang...
13/11/2026
From pediatric research to smart hospitals, AI is helping care teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time with patients.
Health systems and startups...
12/11/2026
Industry leaders examine how Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer, and c...
12/11/2026
The junior Tar Heel is embracing the technical and creative challenges of live production while emerging as a leader and mentor in the control room...
12/11/2026
Gracenote, Nielsen's content intelligence business, has released its fifth a...
12/11/2026
RTL Deutschland will bring the NHL to free-to-air TV in Germany starting Nov. 30...
12/11/2026
Clear-Com supported On Air 2026, a 24-hour student-led broadcast connecting 45 u...
12/11/2026
uniqFEED has opened a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Madrid, Spain. It is already operational, delivering virtual advertising for LaLiga matches. The ROC is ...
12/11/2026
Disney, ESPN and the NBA will present Dunk the Halls, the third real-time animated NBA game using Sony's Beyond Sports data visualization technology, on Chr...
12/11/2026
Van Wagner has launched Van Wagner RELAY, a digital platform for official athlet...
GPUs have been called the rare Earth metals - even the gold - of artificial intelligence, because they're foundational for today's generative AI era.
