As the world’s data-centric workloads become larger and more diverse, so do architectures that can best process them. A recent McKinsey report shows the diversification of preferred compute architectures through 2025. For both data center and edge computing, big growth is expected in the use of ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) and FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), adding to the current lineup consisting predominantly of CPUs and GPUs.
Moving an application to a new processor type or chip vendor means creating an entirely new code base. That extra cost and delay are never welcome – especially today, when organizations face intense pressure to quickly maximize the value of data and commercial offerings, and new workloads and processor options to handle them are exploding.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/18/why-unified-programming-is-the-future-of-application-development/
