An image recognition accelerator, a terminal device, and an image recognition method are provided. The image recognition accelerator includes a dimensionality-reduction processing module, an NVM, and an image matching module. The dimensionality-reduction processing module first reduces a dimensionality of first image data. The NVM writes, into a first storage area of the NVM according to a specified first current I, ω low-order bits of each numeric value of the first image data on which dimensionality reduction has been performed, and writes, into a second storage area of the NVM according to a specified second current, (N−ω) high-order bits of each numeric value of the first image data on which dimensionality reduction has been performed. The image matching module determines whether an image library stored in the NVM includes image data matching the first image data on which dimensionality reduction has been performed.