Definition: DPU

(Data Processing Unit) A set of high-speed programmable processors for datacenters on a card. The DPU system-on-chip (SoC) includes multiple ARM-based CPU cores, high-speed Ethernet (at least 25 Gbps) and a variety of programmable processors known as "acceleration engines." The engines are specialized for AI, security, telecommunications and storage, and the DPU can be a stand-alone card or part of a SmartNIC. A DPU feeds network data to the GPU, bypassing the CPU. See SoC and SmartNIC.

According to NVIDIA, the DPU's acceleration engines must provide TCP acceleration, virtual switch (see OVS), remote DMA (see RDMA), virtualization, traffic shaping, timing, encryption and secure isolation. See TCP, P4 and deduplication.

BlueField DPUs

NVIDIA makes a variety of BlueField-branded DPUs. The "converged accelerator" (bottom) combines DPU and GPU on one card. (Images courtesy of NVIDIA.)