GPU Technology for Accelerated High Performance Computing

Stream computing harnesses the tremendous processing power of the graphics processor unit (GPU) for high-performance, data-intensive computations over a wide range of scientific, business and consumer applications.
In stream computing, operations are applied in parallel through a SIMD architecture to a given data set, or stream of data. To take advantage of the GPU’s SIMD architecture and the hundreds of parallel compute cores it provides, AMD Stream has developed a full software stack of development tools for both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux and Windows operating systems; the AMD Stream SDK. AMD Stream is also porting many common math library functions from the AMD ACML package to the GPU to support compute-intensive applications.
Along with leading 3rd party industry partners and academic institutions worldwide, AMD Stream is building a complete stream computing ecosystem, one that delivers the performance, applications, software and tools necessary to turn AMD's low-cost stream computing vision into reality.
Characteristics of stream computing:
§ Enable new applications on new architectures
§ Parallel problems other than graphics that map well on GPU architecture
§ Transition from fixed function to programmable pipelines
§ Various proof points in research and industry under the name GPGPU