Pipelining is a technique used in computer architecture to improve the efficiency of instruction processing. It breaks down the execution of instructions into several stages, allowing multiple instructions to be processed simultaneously. Each stage completes a part of the instruction, such as fetching, decoding, or executing, which helps to maximize the use of the CPU. By overlapping these stages, pipelining reduces the time it takes to complete a sequence of instructions. This means that while one instruction is being executed, another can be decoded, and yet another can be fetched from memory, leading to faster overall performance in computers.