What is a stored program counter?

A stored program counter (PC) is a register in a computer's CPU that keeps track of the address of the next instruction to be executed in a program. It is crucial for the sequential execution of instructions, as it updates after each instruction is fetched, allowing the CPU to know where to retrieve the next instruction from memory. The program counter can be modified by control flow instructions, such as jumps or branches, to facilitate non-linear execution of code.