A method of defining an implementation of circuits in a programmable device can be provided by receiving a plurality of specifications for a hyperdimensional (HD) computing machine learning application for execution on a programmable device, determining parameters for a template architecture for HD computing machine learning using the plurality of specifications, the template architecture including an HD hypervector encoder, an HD associative search unit, programmable device pre-defined processing units, and programmable device pre-defined processing elements within the pre-defined processing units, and generating programmable device code configured to specify resources to be allocated within the programmable device using pre-defined circuits defined for use in the programmable device using the determined parameters for the template architecture.