Tensor Cores
Tensor Cores are designed to perform matrix multiplication in a highly efficient manner.
They can be thought of as hard-coded matrix math engines where all the inputs in the matrix pour through the unit, and it performs all the multiplications across the matrix elements simultaneously, accumulating the results in one fell swoop.
Tensor Cores are engineered to perform operations in mixed precision.
This means they can compute using a combination of both 16-bit (half precision) and 32-bit (single precision) floating-point formats.
By doing so, they can increase the throughput of mathematical operations, which is essential in AI model training and inference tasks, where the precision requirements can vary.
Dynamic Adaptation for Accuracy
One of the standout features of Tensor Cores is their ability to dynamically adapt their calculations to balance speed and accuracy.
This adaptability is crucial in maintaining the precision of computations in AI models, ensuring that the speedup in processing does not come at the cost of result accuracy.
Performance Acceleration
Tensor Cores significantly boost the performance of AI and HPC workloads.
They are particularly adept at accelerating matrix multiplications and convolutions, which are fundamental operations in deep learning.
This acceleration has led to substantial performance improvements, such as 6X faster training times for transformer networks, which are widely used in natural language processing tasks.
Broad Application Range
The latest generations of Tensor Cores have expanded their capabilities to a wider array of tasks.
While initially focused on deep learning, they now provide performance enhancements across a diverse set of applications in both AI and high performance computing domains.
Key to AI and HPC Workloads
Tensor Cores have become a vital component in the architecture of NVIDIA GPUs, providing acceleration that enables researchers, data scientists, and engineers to push the boundaries in their fields.
They allow for more complex models to be trained and deployed, and for scientific computations to be performed more quickly and efficiently.
Summary
Tensor Cores are highly specialised units within NVIDIA GPUs that are purpose-built for accelerating the matrix math operations that form the backbone of AI and deep learning.
By leveraging techniques like hard-coded matrix multiplication, lower precision arithmetic, and sparsity support, Tensor Cores can deliver significantly higher performance compared to traditional vector units, enabling faster training and inference of complex AI models.
From the Volta architecture to the latest Hopper architecture, NVIDIA has been steadily improving the capabilities and performance of Tensor Cores.
Each new generation introduces larger matrix sizes, higher precision options, and enhanced features like sparsity support, resulting in substantial performance gains for AI and deep learning workloads.
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