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LiveScience
LiveScience
Tim Danton

What are neural processing units (NPUs) and why are they so important to modern computing?

An illustration representing a computer chip.

Ever since the dawn of computing, people have compared machines to brains. This includes two founding fathers of computing — John von Neumann wrote a book called "The Computer and the Brain" while Alan Turing was quoted in 1949 saying: "Eventually I do not see why [a computer] may not compete on equal terms with the human intellect in most fields."

The only problem with this comparison is that the traditional processor — the central processing unit (CPU) — doesn’t mimic the brain at all. CPUs are far too mathematical and logical. The neural processing unit (NPU), on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach: simulating the structure of the human brain in its very circuitry.

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