About CUDA

CUDA is a proprietary parallel computing platform that allows software to use NVIDIA GPUs for accelerated general purpose programming. CUDA API and its runtime, is designed to be a simple extension of C but also allows effective control and utilization of GPU resources.

The framework essentially works as a software layer that abstracts away the GPU and its workings and gives direct access to the GPU’s virtual instruction set and parallel computational elements for the execution of the programming tasks. In addition to the API, CUDA also provides a number of libraries, compilers and developer tools to assist the maximum utilization of GP-GPU resources.

One of the reasons for CUDA’s popularity is the simplicity of the programming interface. It is designed to work with C and Fortran. But most importantly, CUDA has maintained its superiority due to its simplicity and developement support from its parent, NVIDIA.