GPUs: Affordable Desktop Supercomputing
Stephanie Barbe Hammer · 2013
In this chapter, Gerald Hanweck Jr., PhD, provides his insights on how graphical processing units (GPUs) are helping firms gain a competitive advantage in terms of processing power. In an industry driven by speed, GPUs represent a tremendous jump in computing power. GPUs and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are very different, and there is certainly room for both in financial applications. FPGAs are essentially programmable, highly customizable circuits, whereas GPUs are “off-the-shelf,” predesigned, preconfigured chips, dedicated to doing certain things very well, especially tasks that involve parallel numerical processing. GPUs will have a major impact in risk management because they can help process complex risk calculations much more quickly than formerly possible. This will allow risk managers and regulators to monitor financial risk in real time with more realistic models, without resorting to so many of the computational shortcuts prevalent before the financial crisis. Controlled Vocabulary Terms financial crisis; risk management