In a data center, what is the purpose and benefit of a DPU?

A Data Processing Unit (DPU) is a programmable processor that offloads, accelerates, and isolates infrastructure workloads—like networking, storage, and security—from the CPU. This enhances performance, reduces CPU overhead, and improves security by segregating tasks, benefiting AI data centers. It doesn’t handle backups or physical infrastructure directly, focusing instead on compute efficiency.

(Reference: NVIDIA DPU Documentation, Overview Section)