GPU

abbreviation or noun

ˌjē-(ˌ)pē-ˈyü 

variants or less commonly gpu

plural GPUs also gpus

: a specialized CPU designed to efficiently perform calculations for generating computer graphics

A GPU can deliver hundreds of billions of operations per second—some GPUs more than a teraflop, or a trillion operations per second—while requiring only slightly more electrical power and cooling than a CPU.

—Andrea Di Blas et al.

Examples of GPU in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That need is giving rise to a new category of orchestration software—one built to automate the network build-out of GPU clusters, abstract the fabrics beneath them, and enforce hard multi-tenancy in hardware. — R. Scott Raynovich, Forbes.com, 25 June 2026

In our full review, we were impressed by the Ryzen AI Max processor's ability to leverage system RAM as VRAM for high-end graphics performance without a dedicated GPU. — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 25 June 2026

The chip with Broadcom is an ASIC, which industry experts say is less flexible than Nvidia’s GPU, but is also less expensive and can be designed for specific AI tasks. — Kif Leswing, CNBC, 24 June 2026

This 15-inch Legion has an Intel Core i9 14900HX CPU, RTX 5070 GPU (the 8GB VRAM version), 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. — Antonio G. Di Benedetto, The Verge, 23 June 2026

Word History

Etymology

graphics processing unit

First Known Use

1973, in the meaning defined above