An Accelerator is specialized hardware that performs certain computations far faster or more efficiently than a general-purpose CPU, such as a GPU, TPU, FPGA or custom ASIC. In data centers accelerators handle AI, machine learning, graphics and other parallel workloads, and their high power draw shapes rack power and cooling design. They offload demanding tasks from the host processor.
Category: IT & Compute Infrastructure · Subcategory: AI & HPC Infrastructure · Part of the AIDC Technical Terminology reference.