Pinterest has engineered a way to serve its photo-sharing community more of the images they love.
The social-image service, with more than 400 million monthly active users, has trained bigger recommender models for improved accuracy at predicting people's interests.
Pinterest handles hundreds of millions of user requests an hour on any given day. And it must also narrow down relevant images from roughly 300 billion images on the site to roughly 50 for each person.
The last step - ranking the most relevant and engaging content for everyone using Pinterest - required a leap in acceleration to run heftier models, with minimal latency, for better predictions.
Pinterest has improved the accuracy of its recommender models powering people's home feeds and other areas, increasing engagement by as much as 16%.
The leap was enabled by switching from CPUs to NVIDIA GPUs, which could easily be applied next to other areas, including advertising images, according to Pinterest.
Normally we would be happy with a 2% increase, and 16% is just a beginning for home feeds. We see additional gains - it opens a lot of doors for opportunities, said Pong Eksombatchai, a software engineer at Pinterest.
Transformer models capable of better predictions are shaking up industries from retail to entertainment and advertising. But their leaps in performance gains of the past few years have come with a need to serve models that are some 100x bigger as their number of model parameters and computations skyrockets.
Huge Inference Gains, Same Infrastructure Cost Like many, Pinterest engineers wanted to tap into state-of-the-art recommender models to increase engagement. But serving these massive models on CPUs presented a 100x increase in cost and latency. That wasn't going to maintain its magical user experience - fresh and more appealing images - occurring within a fraction of a second.
If that latency happened, then obviously our users wouldn't like that very much because they would have to wait forever, said Eksombatchai. We are pretty close to the limit of what we can do on CPU basically.
The challenge was to serve these hundredfold larger recommender models within the same cost and latency constraints.
Working with NVIDIA, Pinterest engineers began architectural changes to optimize their inference pipeline and recommender models to enable the transition from CPU to GPU cloud instances. The technology transition began late last year and required major changes to how the company manages workloads. The result is a 100x gain in inference efficiency on the same IT budget, meeting their goals.
We are starting to use really, really big models now. And that is where the GPU comes in - to help make these models possible, Eksombatchai said.
Tapping Into cuCollections Switching from CPUs to GPUs required rethinking its inference systems architecture. Among other issues, engineers had to change how they send workloads to their inference servers. Fortunately, there are tools to assist in making the transition easier.
The Pinterest inference server built for CPUs had to be altered because it was set up to send smaller batch sizes to its servers. GPUs can handle much larger workloads, so it's necessary to set up larger batch requests to increase efficiency.
One area where this comes into play is with its embedding table lookup module. Embedding tables are used to track interactions between various context-specific features and interests of user profiles. They can track where you navigate, and what people Pin on Pinterest, share or numerous other actions, helping refine predictions on what users might like to click on next.
They are used to incrementally learn user preference based on context in order to make better content recommendations to those using Pinterest. Its embedding table lookup module required two computation steps repeated hundreds of times because of the number of features tracked.
Pinterest engineers greatly reduced this number of operations using a GPU-accelerated concurrent hash table from NVIDIA cuCollections. And they set up a custom consolidated embedding lookup module so they could merge requests into a single lookup. Better results were seen immediately.
Using cuCollections helped us to remove bottlenecks, said Eksombatchai.
Enlisting CUDA Graphs Pinterest relied on CUDA Graphs to eliminate what was remaining of the small batch operations, further optimizing its inference models.
CUDA Graphs helps reduce the CPU interactions when launching on GPUs. They're designed to enable workloads to be defined as graphs rather than single operations. They provide a mechanism to launch multiple GPU operations through a single CPU operation, reducing CPU overheads.
Pinterest enlisted CUDA Graphs to represent the model inference process as a static graph of operation instead of as those individually scheduled. This enabled the computation to be handled as a single unit without any kernel launching overhead.
The company now supports CUDA Graph as a new backend of its model server. When a model is first loaded, the model server runs the model inference once to build the graph instance. This graph can then be run repeatedly in inference to show content on its app or site.
Implementing CUDA Graphs helped Pinterest to significantly reduce inference latency of its recommender models, according to its engineers.
GPUs have enabled Pinterest to do something that was impossible with CPUs on the same budget, and by doing this they can make changes that have a direct impact on various business metrics.
Learn about Pinterest's GPU-driven inference and optimizations at its GTC session, Serving 100x Bigger Recommender Models, and in the Pinterest Engineering blog.
Register for GTC, running Sept. 19-22, for free to attend sessions with NVIDIA and dozens of industry leaders.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
28/01/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), in partnership with the Oudtshoorn Municipality, invites aspiring and emerging filmmakers to apply for the Sediba...
28/01/2026
As demand for more complex live sports coverage grows, Balkan broadcast specialist MVP has upgraded its flagship HD1 progressive OB truck with the installation ...
28/01/2026
Airlines, cruise and tour operators double down on ad spend as Australians' prioritise travel
Sydney January 28, 2026 - New Nielsen Ad Intel data shows a...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Marshall Electronics launches the CV420-27X, its next-generation ultra-high-definition (UHD) IP camera, at ISE 2026 (Stand 4N900). Engineered for modern IP-base...
28/01/2026
Grass Valley has announced that Television Mobiles Ltd. (TVM), one of Europe's leading independent outside broadcast providers, has carried out a major refu...
28/01/2026
AI, graphics and virtual software power new production capabilities
FOR-A is bringing remarkable new technologies to FOMEX, the Future of Media Exhibition (ex...
28/01/2026
Continuing a longstanding collaboration, Riedel Communications and Nordic media technology company Media Tailor have once again joined forces to deliver a state...
28/01/2026
Pebble has appointed Paul Nagle-Smith as vice president for customer fulfilment, strengthening its senior leadership focus on customer delivery and operational ...
28/01/2026
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset has announced that leading Mexican broadcaster, TV Azteca is using Veset Nimbus on AWS as a disaster recovery (DR) playo...
28/01/2026
Ensuring it can keep pace with a rapidly evolving live sports market, Balkan broadcast facility provider MVP Most Valuable Production has upgraded its flags...
28/01/2026
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud solutions provider that powers and protects life online, and Yospace, the leader in dynamic ad insertion tec...
28/01/2026
The renowned Reykjavik City Theatre (RCT) recently underwent a major intercom system upgrade using Clear-Com solutions. This milestone project utilizes Clear-C...
28/01/2026
Luxembourg, January 26, 2026 - SES S.A. ( SES or the Company ), a leading space solutions company, acknowledges the credit rating action announced by Fitch to...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
28 01 2026 - Media release Screen Australia refreshes Market & Audience approach...
28/01/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Premieres a New Piano Concerto by Peter and Leonar...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
The Wait Is Over: Teaser Trailer Drops for Jo Nesbo's Dete...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces a Fictional Miniseries Inspired by the Marta del Castillo Case
Entertainment
28 January 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to ...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces Santiago Mitres New Film Starring Ver nica L...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the Teaser Trailer for Berlin and the Lady wit...
28/01/2026
Stadtwerke Wolfhagen Modernize Customer Management with AEP.energysuite from Arv...
27/01/2026
Click for Japanese version
Tokyo, Japan - January 27, 2026 - Akamai Technolo...
27/01/2026
L-R: Jonathan Cuchacovich, Sonia Kennebeck, Alan Fischer, Daeil Kim, Andrew Sta...
27/01/2026
Today, Spotify is proud to support our partner Backline, an industry-leading men...
27/01/2026
With nearly 29 million monthly listeners and clear momentum on Spotify, Net n Ve...
27/01/2026
January 14, 2026
We are proud to share that 25 Ontario, First Gulf's commercial project located just two minutes from our head office, has been recognized ...
27/01/2026
January 22, 2026
First Gulf is excited to share that a full-building lease has been secured at 625 Bronte Rd in Oakville, part of Bronte Station Business Park,...
27/01/2026
January 23, 2026
First Gulf continues to demonstrate its commitment to high-performance, sustainable real estate with 351 King Street East achieving BOMA BEST ...
27/01/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
27/01/2026
Nielsen will continue to drive growth and provide local audience measurement
in...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Amagi Media Labs Limited, the only cloud-native SaaS provider offering end-to-end solutions across live production, content preparation, distribution, and monet...
27/01/2026
Miri Technologies Inc. today unveiled its V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP distribution. Designed ...
27/01/2026
The Paul E. Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell in Massachusetts has chosen Ikegami cameras for incorporation into its broadcast-quality television production facili...
27/01/2026
SipRadius, specialists in secure, low latency media transport, will show the pro AV community its end-to-end solution for high quality content distribution and ...
27/01/2026
Hiltron will highlight the fruits of its 45-plus years of experience in satellite communications system integration and product development at the annual GovSat...
27/01/2026
Klvr will demonstrate how its Charger Pro solution is delivering cost reduction and performance benefits for live entertainment and pro AV markets at ISE 2026 (...
27/01/2026
Amino, a global media technology leader in enterprise video and digital signage, today announced that its Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 booth (4N700) wil...
27/01/2026
ANI, India's leading news agency and a major content provider across the Asia Pacific region, today announced a significant expansion of its long standing p...
Pinterest has engineered a way to serve its photo-sharing community more of the images they love.
