Insight: GPUs are driving demand for CPUs

CPUs are gaining ground in AI as demand rises for non-neural network processing. Explore our forecast highlighting renewed growth in production AI workloads.

CPU’s have historically been workhorses for running AI workloads when classic machine learning techniques ruled. CPUs provided sufficient performance for running applications such as a recommendation engine and fraud detection that relied on collaborative filtering and decision trees. Data center CPUs reached $1 billion in revenue back in 2018, when GPUs were just starting to take off. The modern AI revolution, driven by the emergence of performance intensive neural networks drove the GPU market. CPUs have not been able to keep up with the increasing performance requirements of modern AI workloads, and their market growth has stagnated since. However, CPUs are rising again in the AI market, as a preferred architecture to perform all tasks except for neural network processing. In our recent market forecast, we’ve increased the forecasted growth rate of CPUs, with higher future upside. Expect the CPU market to increase in the near term as more AI applications move to production.