CPU (Central Processing Unit) is a general-purpose processor that can handle a wide variety of tasks, including running the operating system, handling input/output operations, and executing software programs.
In AI, CPUs are commonly used to perform tasks such as data preprocessing, feature extraction, and model training. These tasks generally involve a single thread of execution, and a CPU’s ability to handle a variety of tasks makes it well-suited for these types of workloads.
Additionally, CPUs are also used to run the inference of AI models, which is the process of using a trained model to make predictions on new data. During inference, a CPU’s ability to handle a variety of tasks is also useful, as it can handle tasks such as input/output operations and data preprocessing in addition to executing the inference algorithm.
In summary, while a CPU is not as well-suited for complex mathematical calculations and parallelizable tasks as a GPU or TPU, it is still an important component in an AI system as it handles a wide variety of tasks and can be used for both training and inference.
