Brandon K. Baker, Penn Today
Increasingly, neural processing units (NPUs) are making their way into consumer electronics: laptops, high-end tablets, phones, and more. But what do they do, and why are they suddenly showing up?
Answering this question is Benjamin C. Lee, a professor in the departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering and Computer and Information Science at the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Lee began his career as a computer architect who, he says, “thinks a lot about processors and hardware systems.” He explains that while general purpose central processing units or CPUs are the bread and butter for processor designers, a smaller cohort works on NPUs—one that is poised to grow in the years ahead.
“NPUs, that’s where the frontier is and the number of design teams there is much, much smaller,” he says.
In his research at Penn, Lee thinks through sustainability solutions for hardware technologies: processors, data centers, batteries, renewable energy, and amortization, which refers to extending the useful life of computer chips. That work is ongoing and has included collaboration with the private sector, including Meta and Google.
Here, Lee defines an NPU, its function in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), and opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint.