“I want a good parallel computer”

The GPU in your computer is about 10 to 100 times more powerful than the CPU, depending on workload. For real-time graphics rendering and machine learning, you are enjoying that power, and doing those workloads on a CPU is not viable. Why aren't we exploiting that power for other workloads? What prevents a GPU from being a more general purpose computer?

Raph Levien

Fascinating thoughts on parallel computation, including some mentions of earlier projects like Intel's Larabee or the Connection Machine with 64k processors the '80s, as well as a defense of the PlayStation 3's Cell architecture.