Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently suggested broader plans for the Arm-based CPU within the GB10 Grace Blackwell chip, co-developed with MediaTek. During an investor presentation, Huang acknowledged future plans for the desktop CPU, stating, “You know, obviously we have plans,” though remaining tight-lipped on specifics. This, coupled with Nvidia’s recent activities, indicates a potential serious foray into the CPU market.
Huang also highlighted MediaTek’s potential role. He mentioned MediaTek could supply the CPU to Nvidia or independently market it, creating a “win-win” situation for both companies. This suggests MediaTek might independently bring the chip to market.
At CES 2025, Nvidia unveiled Project Digits, a $3,000 desktop AI supercomputer designed for home enthusiasts and researchers. Resembling a Mac mini in size, Project Digits boasts an impressive 1 PFLOPS of FP4 floating-point performance, enabling powerful AI model execution.
exploded image of the Project Digits componentsThe system, inspired by Nvidia’s DGX 100 server design, utilizes the Arm-based GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip. This chip features 20 high-performance cores, 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a 4TB NVMe SSD, providing robust processing and ample storage for demanding AI workloads.
Nvidia emphasized the innovative nature of the Grace Blackwell chip. Ashish Karandikar, Nvidia’s vice president of SoC Products, highlighted the collaboration with Arm as key to transformative AI solutions, paving the way for future advancements.
While Project Digits is a $3,000 Linux-based PC aimed at AI developers, speculation about Nvidia’s consumer CPU ambitions has been rife since October 2023, following reports of Nvidia and AMD developing Arm-based chips for a potential 2025 launch.
With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series CPUs gaining traction in the Windows-on-Arm market, there’s a clear demand for more powerful consumer-grade Arm chips. Nvidia, or MediaTek, could potentially capitalize on this opportunity and establish a significant market presence.
