CUDA

CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is NVIDIA's parallel-computing platform and the dominant API for GPU-accelerated AI. Every major AI framework — PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, llama.cpp, vLLM, ExLlamaV2 — has CUDA as its primary or best-supported backend.

CUDA's incumbency creates the "NVIDIA tax": even when AMD GPUs have comparable hardware (more VRAM at lower price), the software ecosystem leans NVIDIA. ROCm (AMD's CUDA equivalent) has improved significantly on Linux but still trails on Windows and on training workloads.

Practical implication for buyers: if you want to run AI without troubleshooting, get an NVIDIA card. If you're comfortable on Linux and willing to file occasional GitHub issues, AMD's price-per-VRAM-GB advantage can be real. Apple Silicon sidesteps the question entirely with the Metal/MLX path.