The disclosed apparatus and methods include a reconfigurable sampling accelerator and a method of using the reconfigurable sampling accelerator, respectively. The reconfigurable sampling accelerator can be adapted to a variety of target applications. The reconfigurable sampling accelerator can include a sampling module, a memory system, and a controller that is configured to coordinate operations in the sampling module and the memory system. The sampling module can include a plurality of sampling units, and the plurality of sampling units can be configured to generate samples in parallel. The sampling module can leverage inherent characteristics of a probabilistic model to generate samples in parallel.