Nvidia launches Windows laptop chip as it pushes deeper into consumer PCs

ISLAMABAD: Nvidia on Monday introduced a new laptop chip for Windows devices, marking a fresh push by the company into consumer personal computers built around artificial intelligence capabilities.

The announcement came ahead of Computex, a major technology exhibition, and was presented by Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, who said the company and Microsoft were reshaping the personal computer. Analysts said the move puts Nvidia in more direct competition with Apple, Intel and AMD in the PC market, though the new systems are expected to be expensive.

The launch also reflects Nvidia’s effort to widen its presence in consumer hardware at a time when the company has been posting record earnings from strong demand for its data-centre chips used by major technology firms. Nvidia, long known for graphics processing units, has become a central supplier for artificial intelligence tools including chatbots, image generators and software agents.

Governments and companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, helping lift Nvidia’s market value above $5 trillion, a figure greater than the gross domestic product of Japan or India.

Focus shifts to a new CPU

While Nvidia is best known for GPUs, Monday’s announcement centred on a CPU, or central processing unit, which serves as the main processor in a personal computer. The new chip, called RTX Spark, is being positioned as part of a new generation of AI-focused Windows machines capable of running services such as agents that can perform tasks for users.

At the launch, Huang said Microsoft and Nvidia had worked closely on the new systems.

"Microsoft and Nvidia are going to reinvent the PC. This is going to be the new PC,"

He also described the machine as capable of handling demanding workloads across multiple scientific and technical fields.

"If you want to run digital biology, no problem. If you want to do seismic processing, no problem. You want astrophysics, no problem,"

Huang added that the companies had tuned the platform to support both existing software and newer AI uses.

"Microsoft and Nvidia meticulously optimised everything so that this computer literally runs everything the world has ever created, plus it now runs agents, an incredible computer,"

Challenge to established chipmakers

Stephen Wu, a former AI software engineer and founder of the Carthage Capital investment fund, told AFP that the move had been awaited for some time in the technology sector. He said Nvidia was sidestepping the conventional PC supply chain in an attempt to create an integrated hardware position from end to end.

Wu described the development as an “existential threat” to current laptop chip designs and said it was also aimed at encouraging programmers to build new products on Nvidia hardware, which in turn could strengthen demand for its data-centre GPUs.

He said Intel and AMD would be the first companies to feel the impact, adding that AI users would benefit from memory bandwidth needed to run stronger local models with less delay.

Nvidia chips have appeared in Windows devices before, including tablets in the early 2010s. But the latest product is being marketed differently, with a clearer focus on artificial intelligence functions. Huang said the new line represented a fundamental redesign of the PC.

"This is the first completely re-engineered, reinvented line of PCs that has happened in 40 years,"

He said the change was comparable in significance to the transformation of mobile phones into smartphones.

"There is no question this reinvention of the computer is as big of a deal as the reinvention of the phone into what we now know as the smartphone,"