GPU Computing for Neural Networks
What Happened
Researchers including Andrew Ng demonstrated that GPUs (graphics processing units) could train neural networks 10-70x faster than CPUs. NVIDIA's CUDA platform made GPU programming accessible. This hardware breakthrough removed the computational bottleneck that had held back deep learning.
Why It Mattered
Without GPUs, deep learning would have remained impractical. This hardware democratization was as important as any algorithmic breakthrough. NVIDIA would become the most valuable company in the world partly because of this shift.
Key People
Organizations
Part of the Deep Learning Dawn (2006–2011) era · Browse all infrastructure & compute · View all 2009 milestones
