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A tall glass-fronted specimen cabinet holding accelerator boards from six different eras on chronological shelves, with the newest OAM-format accelerator module caught on a wheeled lift cart partway toward its empty top shelf, not yet racked

From Origins to Frontier: A History of AI Accelerator Architecture

A dated, sourced history of AI accelerator architecture: shader-era GPGPU, CUDA's 2006 debut, the 2012 deep-learning pivot, Google's TPU line, HBM and advanced packaging, the AI-ASIC startup wave, and the chips running today's frontier models.

By Brecht Corbeel · September 29, 2026 · 20 min read

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