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The Decline of Computers as a General Purpose Technology.

The article explores how as of early 2021 technological and economic forces are pushing computing away from general purpose and toward specialization. The term general purpose technology (GBT) was coined for products like computers that have broad technical applicability and where product improvemen...

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Published in:Communications of the ACM Vol. 64; no. 3; pp. 64 - 73
Main Authors: THOMPSON, NEIL C., SPANUTH, SVENJA
Format: Article
Published: Association for Computing Machinery Mar2021
Subjects:
Computers & society
Computer engineering
Expertise
Central processing units
Microprocessors
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:The article explores how as of early 2021 technological and economic forces are pushing computing away from general purpose and toward specialization. The term general purpose technology (GBT) was coined for products like computers that have broad technical applicability and where product improvement and market growth could fuel one another. The author also describes how as improvements in central processing units (CPUs) slow, and thus applications move to specialized processors, graphics processing units (GPUs) are becoming more specialized.