AI engineering glossary · Computing foundations
What is machine code?
Machine code: The lowest-level instructions, in binary, that a processor executes directly. Every program, whatever language it was written in, ends up as machine code for the specific processor it runs on.
Machine code: an example
A compiled program file is mostly machine code such as raw instruction bytes for an x86-64 CPU.
Related terms
More Computing foundations terms
- Machine epsilon
- Memory bandwidth
- Memory hierarchy
- Memory leak
- Metadata
- MIME type
- Moore's law
- Multiprocessing
Where you learn it
Machine code is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.