{"id":32161,"date":"2025-04-16T15:47:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T10:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32161"},"modified":"2025-05-27T17:44:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:14:22","slug":"ai-basics-cpu-gpu-and-tpu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/ai-basics-cpu-gpu-and-tpu\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Basics: CPU, GPU and TPU"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>AI Basics: CPU, GPU and TPU Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>How TPU is Different from CPU and GPU<\/p>\n<h2>About Processing Units<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Processing units<\/strong> are the <strong>core hardware components<\/strong> that act as the <strong>brain of a computer<\/strong>. They perform tasks such as <strong>calculations, processing images<\/strong>, and <strong>transmitting data<\/strong>, similar to how the <strong>human brain executes complex tasks<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is a CPU (Central Processing Unit)?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>CPU<\/strong> is a <strong>general-purpose processor<\/strong> that was developed in the <strong>1950s<\/strong> and can handle <strong>a wide variety of tasks<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It functions like a <strong>conductor in an orchestra<\/strong>, coordinating the operations of all other computer parts like <strong>GPUs, disk drives, and memory units<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>A CPU contains <strong>cores<\/strong> \u2014 individual units that execute instructions. Early CPUs had <strong>only one core<\/strong>, but modern CPUs may contain <strong>2 to 16 cores<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Each core can handle one task at a time<\/strong>, so a CPU\u2019s <strong>multitasking capacity<\/strong> depends on the <strong>number of cores<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>For everyday users, <strong>2 to 8 cores<\/strong> are usually sufficient, and CPUs are so efficient that users rarely notice that tasks are completed <strong>sequentially, not simultaneously<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>GPU<\/strong> is a <strong>specialised processor<\/strong> designed to <strong>perform many tasks simultaneously<\/strong>, using a technique called <strong>parallel processing<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Unlike CPUs, which process tasks <strong>sequentially<\/strong>, GPUs break down complex tasks into <strong>thousands or millions of smaller problems<\/strong>, solving them in <strong>parallel<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Modern GPUs contain <strong>thousands of cores<\/strong>, making them far more suitable for <strong>intensive computational tasks<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Initially developed for <strong>rendering graphics<\/strong> in gaming and animation, GPUs are now widely used in <strong>machine learning and artificial intelligence<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>GPUs have evolved into <strong>general-purpose parallel processors<\/strong>, making them a <strong>key tool<\/strong> in running <strong>AI models<\/strong> and handling large data operations.<\/li>\n<li>However, GPUs have <strong>not replaced CPUs<\/strong>, because certain operations are <strong>better handled sequentially<\/strong>, which is the <strong>strength of CPUs<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit)?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A <strong>TPU<\/strong> is also a <strong>type of ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit)<\/strong>, meaning it is <strong>built for a specific function<\/strong> \u2014 in this case, <strong>AI tasks<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>First introduced by <strong>Google in 2015<\/strong>, TPUs are <strong>specially designed hardware units<\/strong> built <strong>from the ground up<\/strong> to handle <strong>machine learning operations<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>TPUs focus on processing <strong>tensors<\/strong> \u2014 the <strong>multidimensional data arrays<\/strong> used in AI model computations.<\/li>\n<li>They are optimised to <strong>run neural networks efficiently<\/strong>, enabling <strong>faster training<\/strong> and <strong>execution of AI models<\/strong> than GPUs or CPUs.<\/li>\n<li>For example, <strong>training an AI model<\/strong> that may take <strong>weeks on a GPU<\/strong> can often be completed in <strong>hours using a TPU<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>TPUs are used at the core of <strong>Google&#8217;s major AI services<\/strong>, such as <strong>Search, YouTube<\/strong>, and <strong>DeepMind&#8217;s large language models<\/strong>, illustrating their real-world application in high-scale AI infrastructure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-sci-tech\/tpu-cpu-gpu-9945632\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CPU is a general-purpose processor that was developed in the 1950s and can handle a wide variety of tasks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":32162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[156,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-32161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-ai-basics","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}