The GPU in your computer is about 10 to 100 times more powerful than the CPU, depending on workload. For real-time graphics rendering and machine learning, you are enjoying that power, and doing those workloads on a CPU is not viable. Why aren’t we exploiting that power for other workloads? What prevents a GPU from being a more general purpose computer?
↫ Raph Levien
Fascinating thoughts on parallel computation, including some mentions of earlier projects like Intel’s Larabee or the Connection Machine with 64k processors the ’80s, as well as a defense of the PlayStation 3’s Cell architecture.