The Future of Machine Learning Hardware

Let's go through a high-level exploration of the evolution of computational hardware technologies with a focus on applications to machine learning (ML), and using cryptocurrency mining as an analogy. I posit that the machine learning industry is undergoing the same progression of hardware as cryptocurrency did years ago. Machine learning algorithms often consist of matrix (and tensor) operations. These calculations benefit greatly from parallel computing, which leads to model-training performed on graphics cards (rather than only on the CPU). Each step in this progression of technologies produces tremendous performance advantages.