diff --git a/modules/core/include/opencv2/core/utility.hpp b/modules/core/include/opencv2/core/utility.hpp
index c844c171b2..41ccb4b88c 100644
--- a/modules/core/include/opencv2/core/utility.hpp
+++ b/modules/core/include/opencv2/core/utility.hpp
@@ -444,6 +444,23 @@ static inline size_t alignSize(size_t sz, int n)
     return (sz + n-1) & -n;
 }
 
+/** @brief Integer division with result round up.
+
+Use this function instead of `ceil((float)a / b)` expressions.
+
+@sa alignSize
+*/
+static inline int divUp(int a, unsigned int b)
+{
+    CV_DbgAssert(a >= 0);
+    return (a + b - 1) / b;
+}
+/** @overload */
+static inline size_t divUp(size_t a, unsigned int b)
+{
+    return (a + b - 1) / b;
+}
+
 /** @brief Enables or disables the optimized code.
 
 The function can be used to dynamically turn on and off optimized code (code that uses SSE2, AVX,
diff --git a/modules/core/src/matrix.cpp b/modules/core/src/matrix.cpp
index bc851704a7..ec09e2117b 100644
--- a/modules/core/src/matrix.cpp
+++ b/modules/core/src/matrix.cpp
@@ -3406,11 +3406,6 @@ static TransposeInplaceFunc transposeInplaceTab[] =
 
 #ifdef HAVE_OPENCL
 
-static inline int divUp(int a, int b)
-{
-    return (a + b - 1) / b;
-}
-
 static bool ocl_transpose( InputArray _src, OutputArray _dst )
 {
     const ocl::Device & dev = ocl::Device::getDefault();
diff --git a/modules/photo/src/fast_nlmeans_denoising_opencl.hpp b/modules/photo/src/fast_nlmeans_denoising_opencl.hpp
index 216ba6dd62..b19adbda96 100644
--- a/modules/photo/src/fast_nlmeans_denoising_opencl.hpp
+++ b/modules/photo/src/fast_nlmeans_denoising_opencl.hpp
@@ -23,11 +23,6 @@ enum
     CTA_SIZE_DEFAULT = 256
 };
 
-static int divUp(int a, int b)
-{
-    return (a + b - 1) / b;
-}
-
 template <typename FT, typename ST, typename WT>
 static bool ocl_calcAlmostDist2Weight(UMat & almostDist2Weight,
                                       int searchWindowSize, int templateWindowSize,