Technology & AI
A CPU is the computer's general thinker. A GPU is the parallel worker. Most machines have both. They are good at different jobs.
The CPU (central processing unit) runs the operating system and your apps. A few fast cores. Work happens in order. It is good at messy, branching tasks: if this, then that. File systems, game logic, a conversation with a user, anything that depends on the last step.
The GPU (graphics processing unit) was built to draw pictures. Thousands of simpler cores doing the same kind of work at once. Paint a million pixels. Multiply a big grid of numbers. That is why it also trains and runs neural nets. Feed it a thousand independent cells and it flies. Ask it to run a to-do list in sequence and it is the wrong tool.
Not smarter vs dumber. Different shape. CPU: a few flexible cores for sequential, branching work. GPU: a crowd of simpler cores for the same operation across a lot of data. Same box. Different jobs.
CPU: logic, the OS, one thing after another. GPU: frames, video, 3D, big number grids, model training and inference. A lot of software uses both in one program.
A handheld or a console has both. The CPU decides what the game is doing this frame (input, physics, who hit whom). The GPU takes that scene and paints every pixel. CPU thinks. GPU draws.