A matrix compression/decompression accelerator (MCA) system/method that coordinates lossless data compression (LDC) and lossless data decompression (LDD) transfers between an external data memory (EDM) and a local data memory (LDM) is disclosed. The system implements LDC using a 2D-to-1D transformation of 2D uncompressed data blocks (2DU) within LDM to generate 1D uncompressed data blocks (1DU). The 1DU is then compressed to generate a 1D compressed superblock (CSB) in LDM. This LDM CSB may then be written to EDM with a reduced number of EDM bus cycles. The system implements LDD using decompression of CSB data retrieved from EDM to generate a 1D decompressed data block (1DD) in LDM. A 1D-to-2D transformation is then applied to the LDM 1DD to generate a 2D decompressed data block (2DD) in LDM. This 2DD may then be operated on by a matrix compute engine (MCE) using a variety of function operators.