Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, emphasized multiple times that the personal artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer "Project Digits" unveiled at the world's largest IT exhibition "CES 2025" earlier this month is an "amazing product."
"This product is really good. I can't express how much I love it in words. Now, everyone can have their own personal AI server."
On the 7th (local time), Huang noted during a global press conference held in Las Vegas, USA, while holding up the palm-sized Project Digits, that.
The product, which Huang praised, is a desktop computer equipped with NVIDIA's super chip "GB10." This super chip integrates next-generation AI Blackwell GPU (graphics processing unit) with a CPU (central processing unit) developed in collaboration with MediaTek, allowing execution of AI models with up to 200 billion parameters using just a desktop, according to NVIDIA. Parameters are a key factor in determining the performance of an AI model, with a higher number resulting in more sophisticated AI models.
Comparing this to OpenAI's ChatGPT version 3.5, which uses 170 billion parameters, it means that individuals can freely fine-tune AI models equivalent to ChatGPT and create their own high-performance AI. It is said that connecting two Project Digits can enable execution of models with up to 405 billion parameters. Meta's super-large AI model LLaMA 3.1, unveiled in July last year, holds the same 405 billion parameters.
The price is $3,000 (about 4.42 million won). Previously, running such large-scale AI models required expensive cloud infrastructure, but now models can be developed and inference executed on a desktop. Huang's ambition is to "place AI supercomputers on the desks of millions of AI developers, data scientists, and students, enabling them to lead the AI era and create innovations."
Amid this, the industry evaluates that the era of "personal AI computers" is about to open, while some criticize it as exaggerated marketing. Tiny Corporation, an AI server startup founded by world-renowned hacker George Hotz, posted on social media (SNS) that "people seem eager to be fooled by a $3,000 box labeled 'AI'" and noted, "NVIDIA claims Digits demonstrates up to 1 petaflop (based on FP4 precision) of AI performance, but FP4 performance is merely useless marketing, and if based on the more practical measure of FP8, it is effectively only 500 teraflops." This highlights a critique that NVIDIA has inflated numbers by lowering the precision standard for AI calculations. This debate is likely to conclude when the product is actually launched in May.
Despite the controversy, Huang's efforts to expand the ecosystem are not expected to end here. He stated plans to make the CPUs used in Project Digits and other components more widely available than for developers. He also mentioned that a solution integrating the Linux operating system (OS) mainly used by AI developers with the Windows OS used by general consumers will be provided.
He emphasized that the CPU designed in collaboration with MediaTek is energy-efficient, and the industry anticipates that NVIDIA will soon release consumer products equipped with this CPU and OS integration technology. After the press conference, Huang mentioned at an analyst meeting that "additional plans (for desktop CPUs) are certainly in place" and that they will utilize solutions like OS integration to make it available to end users through PC manufacturers. Through this, NVIDIA is expected to challenge the consumer and business computer markets dominated by Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, creating a new competitive landscape.