Use of modern GPUs in Design Optimization

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are a promising alternative hardware to Central Processing Units (CPU) for accelerating applications with a high computational power demand. In many fields researchers are taking advantage of the high computational power present in GPUs to speed up their applications. These applications span from data mining to machine learning and life sciences. The field of design optimization in particular benefits from this alternative hardware. The automated search on the design space has been delegated to GPUs or to a system of CPUs assisted by GPUs. This paper is among the firsts to review the use of GPUs especially for design optimization. The focus is on topology optimization, shape optimization and multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO). The target is to provide an overview not only on the progress made in design optimization using GPUs but also to highlights limitations that researchers have to cope with and the areas that require more research.