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Developer(s) | Nvidia |
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Initial release | February 15, 2007 |
Stable release | 12.6
/ August 2024 |
Operating system | Windows, Linux |
Platform | Supported GPUs |
Type | GPGPU |
License | Proprietary |
Website | developer |
In computing, CUDA is a proprietary[1] parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) that allows software to use certain types of graphics processing units (GPUs) for accelerated general-purpose processing, an approach called general-purpose computing on GPUs. CUDA was created by Nvidia in 2006.[2] When it was first introduced, the name was an acronym for Compute Unified Device Architecture,[3] but Nvidia later dropped the common use of the acronym and now rarely expands it.[4]
CUDA is a software layer that gives direct access to the GPU's virtual instruction set and parallel computational elements for the execution of compute kernels.[5] In addition to drivers and runtime kernels, the CUDA platform includes compilers, libraries and developer tools to help programmers accelerate their applications.
CUDA is designed to work with programming languages such as C, C++, Fortran and Python. 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.[6] CUDA-powered GPUs also support programming frameworks such as OpenMP, OpenACC and OpenCL.[7][5]