Glossary
GPU
A graphics processing unit, a chip that performs many calculations in parallel and is widely used to train and run AI.
GPUs were designed to render graphics for games, but their ability to perform huge numbers of calculations at once made them the main hardware for AI. Data center GPUs built for AI are far more powerful and expensive than consumer graphics cards.
Supply of advanced GPUs has been a bottleneck for AI companies, and chip counts are often used in news to describe the size of a data center or a deal. GPUs compete with custom AI chips such as Google's TPUs.
A raw GPU count says little on its own: generations differ greatly in performance, and chips also need memory, networking, cooling, and power to be useful.