⏾ Concept Map

CUDA ○˒｜Definition｜1st｜20261021140952-00-⌔

CUDA - Wikipedia

CUDA

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CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a proprietary1 parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) developed by Nvidia that allows software to use certain types of graphics processing units (GPUs) for accelerated general-purpose processing, significantly broadening their utility in artificial intelligence, scientific and high-performance computing. CUDA was created in 2004 and was officially released in 2007.2 When introduced, the name was an acronym for Compute Unified Device Architecture,3 but Nvidia later dropped the initial meaning of the acronym and now rarely expands it.4

CUDA is both a software layer that manages data, giving direct access to the GPU and CPU as necessary, and a library of APIs that enable parallel computation.56 In addition to drivers and runtime kernels, the CUDA platform includes compilers, libraries and developer tools to help programmers.

CUDA is written in the C programming language, but is designed to work with other programming languages including C++, Fortran, Python and Julia. This accessibility makes it easier for specialists in parallel programming to use GPU resources, in contrast to prior APIs like Direct3D and OpenGL, which require advanced skills in graphics programming.7 CUDA-powered GPUs support programming frameworks such as OpenMP, OpenACC and OpenCL.85

Printed 2026-10-21.

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Footnotes

  1. Shah, Agam. “Nvidia not totally against third parties making CUDA chips”. www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2024-04-25. ↩

  2. “Nvidia CUDA Home Page”. 18 July 2017. ↩

  3. Shimpi, Anand Lal; Wilson, Derek (November 8, 2006). “Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10”. AnandTech. Archived from the original on April 24, 2010. Retrieved May 16, 2015. ↩

  4. “Introduction – nsight-visual-studio-edition 12.6 documentation”. docs.nvidia.com. Retrieved 2024-10-10. ↩

  5. Abi-Chahla, Fedy (June 18, 2008). “Nvidia’s CUDA: The End of the CPU?”. Tom’s Hardware. Retrieved May 17, 2015. ↩ ↩2

  6. Jones, Stephen (2025-04-22). What is CUDA? (Video). Computerphile. Retrieved 2025-07-24 – via YouTube. ↩

  7. Zunitch, Peter (2018-01-24). “CUDA vs. OpenCL vs. OpenGL”. Videomaker. Retrieved 2018-09-16. ↩

  8. “OpenCL”. NVIDIA Developer. 2013-04-24. Retrieved 2019-11-04. ↩