CUDA stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) created by NVIDIA. It allows developers to use a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) for general-purpose processing, enabling faster computations for tasks that can be performed simultaneously. By leveraging the power of NVIDIA GPUs, CUDA helps accelerate applications in various fields, including scientific computing, machine learning, and image processing. This technology allows programmers to write code in languages like C, C++, and Fortran, making it accessible for many developers to harness the capabilities of parallel processing.