MAC (multiply-accumulate)
Beginner
One multiplication added onto a running total. AI needs billions of them every second.
Novice
The operation : multiply two numbers and add the result to a running total. A matrix multiplication is made of many of them, so AI chips quote their peak speed in MACs per clock cycle.
Expert
The basic datapath cell of a matrix engine. Its input precision (INT8, FP8, BF16) sets area and energy per operation, and the width of its accumulator sets how many products can be summed before rounding or overflow hurts accuracy.
Explained in AI accelerators and datacenter (Industries).