Systems, apparatus, articles of manufacture, and methods are disclosed to improve performance of a computing device implementing an exponential function. An example apparatus includes interface circuitry to obtain an input, computer readable instructions, and programmable circuitry to instantiate range reduction circuitry to determine, based on the input, a first range reduced argument and an accuracy control value for an approximation of the exponential function of the neural network, and determine, based on the first range reduced argument, a second range reduced argument for the approximation of the exponential function, the second range reduced argument having a smaller data range than the first range reduced argument, and exponential configuration circuitry to compute an exponential value of the input based on the accuracy control value and an exponential value of the second range reduced argument.