In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has prompted major technology companies to increase their layout in the field of AI computing. Recently, MediaTek and NVIDIA have reached a cooperation to jointly develop a chip for AI supercomputers, which not only demonstrates the ambition of both parties in the field of AI, but also injects new impetus into the innovation and popularization of AI technology.
Background: MediaTek is the world's leading chip design company, and has established a wide market influence with its technology accumulation in the fields of smartphones, smart TVs and IoT devices. As a global leader in accelerated computing, NVIDIA's excellence in graphics processing and AI technology has made it an important enabler of the development of AI supercomputer technology. The goal of the collaboration is to combine the strengths of the two companies in chip design and accelerated computing to jointly develop a powerful AI supercomputer chip.
Goal of the collaboration: The chip will be used in Project Digits, NVIDIA's personal AI supercomputer project, which aims to provide AI researchers, data scientists and students with a computing platform with powerful computing power. This chip will support the efficient operation of large-scale AI models, and promote the application and popularization of AI technology in more fields.
Second, the technical characteristics of the chip
This AI supercomputer chip excels in multiple technical dimensions, with extremely high performance and innovative design.
Architecture & Performance: The new chip is based on NVIDIA's Grace Blackwell architecture and is based on TSMC's advanced 3nm process technology. This architecture provides the chip with powerful computing power, capable of supporting AI computing performance of up to 1 quadrillion per second, and can effectively run large language models with up to 200 billion parameters. This powerful performance enables the chip to handle extremely complex computing requirements when processing AI tasks.
Memory & Storage: The chip is equipped with 128GB of unified memory and up to 4TB of NVMe storage to ensure efficient operation for big data processing and AI model training. This design allows the chip to maintain high processing speeds in scenarios with high data throughput, reducing latency and improving performance.
Connectivity & Power Consumption: In order to ensure a balance between efficient computing performance and low power consumption, the chip adopts NVLink-C2C chip-to-chip interconnect technology, which enables efficient communication between GPU and CPU. Through advanced design and manufacturing processes, the chip can provide excellent performance while maintaining low power consumption, making the overall computing platform more energy-efficient and efficient.
Pictured: MediaTek has partnered with Nvidia to develop a new AI chip
3. Market positioning and competition
Market positioning: Unlike general consumer-facing PC chips, this new chip is mainly aimed at professional users such as AI researchers, data scientists, and students. It will provide these users with a high-performance computing platform to help them prototype, train, fine-tune, and test AI models. Through this specialized positioning, MediaTek's cooperation with NVIDIA will be able to meet the growing computing needs in the field of AI.
Market Competition: In the AI supercomputer chip market, this chip will compete with Intel's Lunar Lake chip and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip. While these chips also use TSMC's 3nm process technology and are primarily aimed at consumer and commercial PC users, MediaTek and NVIDIA's chips are expected to occupy a niche in the AI research and computing market due to their powerful AI computing power and positioning for professional users.
Fourth, the future outlook
Time-to-market: Project Digits, the personal AI supercomputer powered by the AI supercomputer chip, is expected to be officially available in May 2025 with a starting price of $3,000. At that time, AI researchers and developers will be able to experience this powerful computing platform to further advance AI technology.
Cooperation prospects: The cooperation between MediaTek and NVIDIA will not only help MediaTek expand its business territory in the AI field, but also inject new impetus into NVIDIA's layout in the AI supercomputer market. With the continuous development of AI technology, the two parties are expected to carry out more extensive cooperation in the future to promote the innovation of more AI-related technologies and products.
Conclusion
The AI supercomputer chip jointly developed by MediaTek and NVIDIA will provide an efficient computing platform for AI researchers, data scientists and students with its powerful computing power, innovative design and professional positioning, and facilitate the rapid development and application of AI technology. With the launch of Project Digits, this chip is expected to achieve significant market performance in the AI supercomputer market and become an important force in promoting the advancement of AI technology.
