MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC.
The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said.
The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles.
Photo: AFP
MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones and Arm-based Chromebooks, said in a statement that it is collaborating with Nvidia on the design of the GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip for Project Digits, a personal AI supercomputer.
“Our collaboration with Nvidia on the GB10 superchip aligns with MediaTek’s vision of helping make great technology accessible to anyone,” MediaTek vice chairman and chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) said in the statement. “Along with Nvidia, we are working to usher in a new era of innovation and make AI ubiquitous.”
Nvidia said Project Digits is the world’s smallest AI supercomputer and is capable of running a 200 billion-parameter model.
“Project Digits, with the new GB10 superchip designed with MediaTek, makes our most powerful Grace Blackwell platform more accessible — placing it in the hands of developers, researchers and students to solve the most pressing issues of our time,” Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said in the statement.
Project Digits is scheduled to be available in May, starting at US$3,000, Nvidia said.
The new GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip targets a different market segment of ARM-based AI PCs from those equipped with Intel Corp’s Lunar Lake chip or Qualcomm Inc’s Snapdragon chips for average consumers and commercial PC users, an industry expert said.
The new chip is likely to be made using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) 3-nanometer process technology to compete with Intel’s Lunar Lake chip, which is also made on the Taiwanese company’s 3-nanometer technology, the expert said.
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