NVIDIA: Future GPUs to get greater programmability

Graphics processing units (GPUs) of the future will require both higher levels of performance and greater programmability compared to today's GPUs, according chief scientist at Nvidia Corp. But while central processing units (CPUs) will get close to each other, they will not converge into something completely universal and there will rather be heterogeneous multi-core chips than some universal processors.

"Future GPUs will be both far more powerful in terms of raw performance and more programmable - in the sense that the range of applications that they can accelerate will be much broader than today. A lot of our architecture research is focused at improving programmability without sacrificing performance," said Bill Dally, the chief scientist of Nvidia, during a public conference on Wednesday.