Lesson 2: What Is a GPU, and Why Not Just a CPU?

You've heard AI 'runs on a GPU' but aren't sure what that is or why? Great — there's no code here. We'll understand simply the difference between a CPU (the computer's regular brain) and a GPU (the graphics card), and why the GPU is so well-suited to running models. Hint: it's all about doing many s

A CPU is one master chef — great for a single complex dish. A GPU is a thousand line cooks — great at making a thousand simple, identical dishes all at once.

CPU: The computer's regular processor. A few strong, smart cores, great at one complex task at a time.
GPU: The graphics card. Thousands of simple cores working together at once — great for lots of simple work in parallel.
Parallelism: Doing many things at the same time instead of one after another. The GPU is built exactly for this.