accelerador

An accelerator, sometimes rendered as accelerador in Spanish and Portuguese, is any device, program, or mechanism that increases the speed of a process or the rate of energy transfer. The term is used across several fields, from physics to computing and business, to describe tools that raise performance or output without changing the underlying system's fundamental nature.

In physics, particle accelerators use electric and magnetic fields to increase the kinetic energy of charged particles. They enable high-energy experiments, study fundamental particles, and produce radiation for medicine and industry. Large facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider and linear accelerators have contributed to discoveries of fundamental particles and technologies for cancer therapy and materials research.

In computing, accelerators are hardware units designed to speed up specific tasks. Graphics processing units (GPUs), tensor processing units (TPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) fall into this category. They improve performance in areas such as artificial intelligence, graphics, data analysis, and simulation.

In the business world, accelerators refer to programs that support early-stage startups. A typical accelerator offers mentorship, workspace, and a small equity investment, running for several months and culminating in a demo day where participants pitch to investors.

In everyday language, accelerator can refer to the gas pedal in a vehicle, which controls engine speed and vehicle acceleration.