
CPU Examples, Applications and Use Cases
With CPUs, we’re talking about a very small processor chip, and yet there’s very little that this very little thing cannot do. A brief survey shows which industries depend the most heavily on CPUs:
Consumer electronics
Many of the world’s most profitable companies—such as Apple—make devices for the consumer electronics industry. The rampant demand for personal computing platforms (like smartphones, laptops and gaming consoles) has driven a massive and ongoing expansion of CPU use. Beyond that, household devices blessed with Internet of Things (IoT) technology means that CPUs are now being incorporated into refrigerators, thermostats, security systems and more.
Data analytics
The goal of data analytics is to take raw data and refine it into an understandable narrative that addresses business goals. The first part of that process is assembling and cleaning the data. CPUs are instrumental to these activities, serving as the primary computer processing units. In addition, the high clock speeds achieved by CPUs make them perfectly suited to handle the type of rapid-fire scanning and retrieval of information that data analytics requires.
Defense and space
The CPU is the true backbone of modern defense systems. Any country that desires to be a global power must have modern computers as part of its security arsenal. Likewise, humankind’s achievements in space exploration could never have occurred without the CPU to handle the awesome computational challenges of calculating the distance and routes of space flights. Space poses a unique challenge for computers, which must be radiation-hardened to withstand powerful solar rays.
Financial services
Like data analytics, fintech companies depend on CPUs to enable the fast and efficient processing of huge amounts of financial-based information. By running advanced analyses on such data and then applying a range of different scenarios to that data, risk management systems that CPUs enable can help financial institutions reduce losses. CPUs also assist that effort in another key way—by helping flag oddities and detecting cases of fraud.
Healthcare
Nearly every type of industry benefits because of the fast speeds CPUs achieve, but none as importantly as healthcare, where lives literally hang in the balance and timing is a critical concern. Beyond the ability to quickly shuttle vital patient information between providers, CPUs can be used to help automate the ordering and tracking of prescriptions and other supplies. Computers can also both create pre-surgical 3D models of organs and help pathologists study illnesses.
Manufacturing
The use of semiconductors has radically changed manufacturing, synching the input of materials and improving quality control. Manufacturing is also being revolutionized by computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), where CPU-driven computer systems help run industrial production operations. CAM uses direct or indirect connections that exist between the CPU and production operations to schedule, control and manage manufacturing activity.
Telecom
The telecom industry offers its own bread-and-butter products—communication technology devices—but also assists other industries in important ways. Those use cases include enabling digital transactions (for the financial services industry) and assisting healthcare by supporting robotic surgeries with precision capabilities and data updates. In addition, CPUs are essential to operating autonomous vehicles, which rely on telecom signals for navigational guidance.
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