Intel Corporation today announced the creation of two new artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives as part of the AI PC Acceleration Program: the AI PC Developer Program and the addition of independent hardware vendors to the program. These are critical milestones in Intel's pursuit of enabling the software and hardware ecosystem to optimize and maximize AI on more than 100 million Intel-based AI PCs through 2025.

"We have made great strides with our AI PC Acceleration Program by working with the ecosystem. Today, with the addition of the AI PC Developer Program, we are expanding our reach to go beyond large ISVs and engage with small- and medium-sized players and aspiring developers. Our goal is to drive a frictionless experience by offering a broad set of tools including the new AI-ready Developer Kit," said Carla Rodriguez, Intel vice president and general manager of Client Software Ecosystem Enabling.

Canalys anticipates that China's PC (excluding tablets) market will rebound to 3% growth in 2024 and 10% growth in 2025, primarily fueled by refresh demand from the commercial sector. The tablet market is expected to grow by 4% in both 2024 and 2025, benefiting from increasing penetration as digitalization deepens.

"2024 is expected to bring modest relief to a struggling PC market in China, but a challenging environment will remain," said Canalys Analyst Emma Xu. "Ongoing economic structural adjustments are a key priority as the government seeks new avenues for economic growth, with a core focus on technology-driven innovation. AI emerged as a central theme during the latest 'Two Sessions' in China, with enthusiasm for AI spanning commercial entities and government initiatives aimed at establishing a domestic AI ecosystem across industries. Significant opportunities for the PC industry are set to arise from this commercial push, especially as it coincides with the upcoming device refresh and the emergence of AI-capable PCs."

A manufacturing plant near Hsinchu, Taiwan's Silicon Valley, is among facilities worldwide boosting energy efficiency with AI-enabled digital twins. A virtual model can help streamline operations, maximizing throughput for its physical counterpart, say engineers at Wistron, a global designer and manufacturer of computers and electronics systems. In the first of several use cases, the company built a digital copy of a room where NVIDIA DGX systems undergo thermal stress tests (pictured above). Early results were impressive.

Making Smart Simulations
Using NVIDIA Modulus, a framework for building AI models that understand the laws of physics, Wistron created digital twins that let them accurately predict the airflow and temperature in test facilities that must remain between 27 and 32 degrees C. A simulation that would've taken nearly 15 hours with traditional methods on a CPU took just 3.3 seconds on an NVIDIA GPU running inference with an AI model developed using Modulus, a whopping 15,000x speedup. The results were fed into tools and applications built by Wistron developers with NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for creating 3D workflows and applications based on OpenUSD.

We're excited to announce we're expanding our AI Inference benchmark offerings with the UL Procyon AI Image Generation Benchmark, coming Monday, 25th March. AI has the potential to be one of the most significant new technologies hitting the mainstream this decade, and many industry leaders are competing to deliver the best AI Inference performance through their hardware. Last year, we launched the first of our Procyon AI Inference Benchmarks for Windows, which measured AI Inference performance with a workload using Computer Vision.

The upcoming UL Procyon AI Image Generation Benchmark provides a consistent, accurate and understandable workload for measuring the AI performance of high-end hardware, built with input from members of the industry to ensure fair and comparable results across all supported hardware.

Ugreen, a leading innovator in consumer electronics, is excited to announce the launch of its inaugural Network Attached Storage (NAS) series. The launch is scheduled for March 26 on the popular crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter.com. This campaign is specifically aimed at users in the United States and Germany. As a special incentive, UGREEN is offering an early bird discount of 40%, with prices commencing at just USD $239.99. Visit Kickstarter.com to be among the first to experience UGREEN's innovative NASync series.

UGREEN NASync series is a versatile range designed to cater to a variety of use scenarios. The NASync DXP2800 and NASync DXP4800 and DXP4800 Plus are tailored for personal and home users. For power users and business solutions, UGREEN offers the NASync DXP6800 Pro and NASync DXP8800 Plus. Lastly, the NASync DXP480T Plus is specifically designed to meet the needs of creative and media professionals.

Know more about the Kickstarter campaign here.

George Hotz and his startup operation (Tiny Corporation) appeared ready to completely abandon AMD Radeon GPUs last week, after experiencing a period of firmware-related headaches. The original plan involved the development of a pre-orderable $15,000 TinyBox AI compute cluster that housed six XFX Speedster MERC310 RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, but software/driver issues prompted experimentation via alternative hardware routes. A lot of media coverage has focused on the unusual adoption of consumer-grade GPUs—Tiny Corp.'s struggles with RDNA 3 (rather than CDNA 3) were maneuvered further into public view, after top AMD brass pitched in.

The startup's social media feed is very transparent about showcasing everyday tasks, problem-solving and important decision-making. Several Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 OC cards were purchased and promptly integrated into a colorfully-lit TinyBox prototype, but Hotz & Co. swiftly moved onto Team Green pastures. Tiny Corp. has begrudgingly adopted NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs. Earlier today, it was announced that work on the AMD-based system has resumed—although customers were forewarned about anticipated teething problems. The surprising message arrived in the early hours: "a hard to find 'umr' repo has turned around the feasibility of the AMD TinyBox. It will be a journey, but it gives us an ability to debug. We're going to sell both, red for $15,000 and green for $25,000. When you realize your pre-order you'll choose your color. Website has been updated. If you like to tinker and feel pain, buy red. The driver still crashes the GPU and hangs sometimes, but we can work together to improve it."

Imagine a world where you can whisper your digital wishes into your device, and poof, it happens. That world may be coming sooner than you think. But if you're worried about AI doing your thinking for you, you might be waiting for a while. In a fireside chat Wednesday (March 20) at NVIDIA GTC, the global AI conference, Kanjun Qiu, CEO of Imbue, and Bryan Catanzaro, VP of applied deep learning research at NVIDIA, challenged many of the clichés that have long dominated conversations about AI. Launched in October 2022, Imbue made headlines with its Series B fundraiser last year, raising over $200 million at a $1 billion valuation.

The Future of Personal Computing
Qiu and Catanzaro discussed the role that virtual worlds will play in this, and how they could serve as interfaces for human-technology interaction. "I think it's pretty clear that AI is going to help build virtual worlds," said Catanzaro. "I think the maybe more controversial part is virtual worlds are going to be necessary for humans to interact with AI." People have an almost primal fear of being displaced, Catanzaro said, but what's much more likely is that our capabilities will be amplified as the technology fades into the background. Catanzaro compared it to the adoption of electricity. A century ago, people talked a lot about electricity. Now that it's ubiquitous, it's no longer the focus of broader conversations, even as it makes our day-to-day lives better.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., unveiled today the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 Mobile Platform, bringing on-device generative AI into the Snapdragon 7 series. The Mobile Platform supports a wide range of AI models including large language models (LLMs) such as Baichuan-7B, Llama 2, and Gemini Nano. Fueling extraordinary entertainment capabilities, Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 also brings new select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features to the 7-series including Game Post Processing Accelerator and Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2, enhancing game effects and upscaling gaming content for desktop-level visuals. Plus, this platform brings top-notch photography features with our industry-leading 18-bit cognitive ISP.

"Today, we embark on the latest expansion in the 7-series to create new levels of entertainment for consumers - integrating next-generation technologies for richer experiences," said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 is packed with support for incredible on-device generative AI features and provides incredible performance and power efficiency, while bringing Wi-Fi 7 to the Snapdragon 7 Series for the first time."

NVIDIA has been offering its GPU IP for more than a decade now ever since the introduction of Kepler uArch, and its IP has had relatively low traction in other SoCs. However, that trend seems to be reaching an inflection point as NVIDIA has given MediaTek a license to use its GPU IP to produce the next generation of processors for the auto industry. The newest MediaTek Dimensity Auto Cockpit family consists of CX-1, CY-1, CM-1, and CV-1, where the CX-1 targets premium vehicles, CM targets medium range, and CV targets lower-end vehicles, probably divided by their compute capabilities. The Dimensity Auto Cockpit family is brimming with the latest technology, as the processor core of choice is an Armv9-based design paired with "next-generation" NVIDIA GPU IP, possibly referring to Blackwell, capable of doing ray tracing and DLSS 3, powered by RTX and DLA.

The SoC is supposed to integrate a lot of technology to lower BOM costs of auto manufacturing, and it includes silicon for controlling displays, cameras (advanced HDR ISP), audio streams (multiple audio DSPs), and connectivity (WiFi networking). Interestingly, the SKUs can play movies with AI-enhanced video and support AAA gaming. MediaTek touts the Dimensity Auto Cockpit family with fully local AI processing capabilities, without requiring assistance from outside servers via WiFi, and 3D spatial sensing with driver and occupant monitoring, gaze-aware UI, and natural controls. All of that fits into an SoC fabricated at TSMC's fab on a 3 nm process and runs on the industry-established NVIDIA DRIVE OS.

Chinese e-commerce and cloud giant Alibaba announced its plans to launch a server-grade RISC-V processor later this year, and it showcased a RISC-V-powered laptop running an open-source operating system. The announcements were made by Alibaba's research division, the Damo Academy, at the recent Xuantie RISC-V Ecological Conference in Shenzhen. The upcoming server-class processor called the Xuantie C930, is expected to be launched by the end of 2024. While specific details about the chip have not been disclosed, it is anticipated to cater to AI and server workloads. This development is part of Alibaba's ongoing efforts to expand its RISC-V portfolio and reduce reliance on foreign chip technologies amidst US export restrictions. To complement the C930, Alibaba is also preparing a Xuantie 907 matrix processing unit for AI, which could be an IP block inside an SoC like the C930 or an SoC of its own.

In addition to the C930, Alibaba showcased the RuyiBOOK, a laptop powered by the company's existing T-Head C910 processor. The C910, previously designed for edge servers, AI, and telecommunications applications, has been adapted for use in laptops. Strangely, the RuyiBOOK laptop runs on the openEuler operating system, an open-source version of Huawei's EulerOS, which is based on Red Hat Linux. The laptop also features Alibaba's collaboration suite, Ding Talk, and the open-source office software Libre Office, demonstrating its potential to cater to the needs of Chinese knowledge workers and consumers without relying on foreign software. Zhang Jianfeng, president of the Damo Academy, emphasized the increasing demand for new computing power and the potential for RISC-V to enter a period of "application explosion." Alibaba plans to continue investing in RISC-V research and development and fostering collaboration within the industry to promote innovation and growth in the RISC-V ecosystem, lessening reliance on US-sourced technology.

Mobile tech tipster, Revegnus, has highlighted an interesting Samsung presentation slide—according to machine translation, the company's electronics division is already responding to an anticipated growth of "client-side large language model" service development. This market trend will demand improved Universal Flash Storage (UFS) interface speeds—Samsung engineers are currently engaged in: "developing a new product that uses UFS 4.0 technology, but increases the number of channels from the current 2 to 4." The upcoming "more advanced" UFS 4.0 storage chips could be beefy enough to be utilized alongside next-gen mobile processors in 2025. For example; ARM is gearing up "Blackhawk," the Cortex-X4's successor—industry watchdogs reckon that the semiconductor firm's new core is designed to deliver "great Large Language Model (LLM) performance" on future smartphones. Samsung's roadmap outlines another major R&D goal, but this prospect is far off from finalization—their chart reveals an anticipated 2027 rollout. The slide's body of text included a brief teaser: "at the same time, we are also actively participating in discussions on the UFS 5.0 standard."

Yesterday, AMD announced that its cutting-edge adaptive computing technology was selected by Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS) for its newest automotive LiDAR reference design. SSS, a global leader in image sensor technology, and AMD joined forces to deliver a powerful and efficient LiDAR solution for use in autonomous vehicles. Using adaptive computing technology from AMD significantly extends the SSS LiDAR system capabilities, offering extraordinary accuracy, fast data processing, and high reliability for next-generation autonomous driving solutions.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of autonomous driving, the demand for precise and reliable sensor technology has never been greater. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology plays a pivotal role in enabling depth perception and environmental mapping for various industries. LiDAR delivers image classification, segmentation, and object detection data that is essential for 3D vision perception enhanced by AI, which cannot be provided by cameras alone, especially in low-light or inclement weather. The dedicated LiDAR reference design addresses the complexities of autonomous vehicle development with a standardized platform to enhance safety in navigating diverse driving scenarios.

Altair, a global leader in computational intelligence, announced the upcoming release of Altair SimSolid for electronics, bringing game-changing fast, easy, and precise multi-physics scenario exploration for electronics, from chips, PCBs, and ICs to full system design. "As the electronics industry pushes the boundaries of complexity and miniaturization, engineers have struggled with simulations that often compromise on detail for expediency. Altair SimSolid will empower engineers to capture the intricate complexities of PCBs and ICs without simplification," said James R. Scapa, founder and chief executive officer, Altair. "Traditional simulation methods often require approximations when analyzing PCB structures due to their complexity. Altair SimSolid eliminates these approximations to run more accurate simulations for complex problems with vast dimensional disparities."

Altair SimSolid has revolutionized conventional analysis in its ability to accurately predict complex structural problems with blazing-fast speed while eliminating the complexity of laborious hours of modeling. It eliminates geometry simplification and meshing, the two most time-consuming and expertise-intensive tasks done in traditional finite element analysis. As a result, it delivers results in seconds to minutes—up to 25x faster than traditional finite element solvers—and effortlessly handles complex assemblies. Having experienced fast adoption in the aerospace and automotive industries, two sectors that typically experience challenges associated with massive structures, Altair SimSolid is poised to play a significant role in the electronics market. The initial release, expected in Q2 2024, will support structural and thermal analysis for PCBs and ICs with full electromagnetics analysis coming in a future release.

During its 55th annual shareholders' meeting, Samsung Electronics announced its entry into the AI processor market with the upcoming launch of its Mach-1 AI accelerator chips in early 2025. The South Korean tech giant revealed its plans to compete with established players like NVIDIA in the rapidly growing AI hardware sector. The Mach-1 generation of chips is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design equipped with LPDDR memory that is envisioned to excel in edge computing applications. While Samsung does not aim to directly rival NVIDIA's ultra-high-end AI solutions like the H100, B100, or B200, the company's strategy focuses on carving out a niche in the market by offering unique features and performance enhancements at the edge, where low power and efficient computing is what matters the most.

According to SeDaily, the Mach-1 chips boast a groundbreaking feature that significantly reduces memory bandwidth requirements for inference to approximately 0.125x compared to existing designs, which is an 87.5% reduction. This innovation could give Samsung a competitive edge in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. As the demand for AI-powered devices and services continues to soar, Samsung's foray into the AI chip market is expected to intensify competition and drive innovation in the industry. While NVIDIA currently holds a dominant position, Samsung's cutting-edge technology and access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing nodes could make it a formidable contender. The Mach-1 has been field-verified on an FPGA, while the final design is currently going through a physical design for SoC, which includes placement, routing, and other layout optimizations.

George Hotz and his Tiny Corporation colleagues were pinning their hopes on AMD delivering some good news earlier this month. The development of a "TinyBox" AI compute cluster project hit some major roadblocks a couple of weeks ago—at the time, Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU firmware was not gelling with Tiny Corp.'s setup. Hotz expressed "70% confidence" in AMD approving open-sourcing certain bits of firmware. At the time of writing this has not transpired—this week the Tiny Corp. social media account has, once again, switched to an "all guns blazing" mode. Hotz and Co. have publicly disclosed that they were dabbling with Intel Arc graphics cards, as of a few weeks ago. NVIDIA hardware is another possible route, according to freshly posted open thoughts.

Yesterday, it was confirmed that the young startup organization had paused its utilization of XFX Speedster MERC310 RX 7900 XTX graphics cards: "the driver is still very unstable, and when it crashes or hangs we have no way of debugging it. We have no way of dumping the state of a GPU. Apparently it isn't just the MES causing these issues, it's also the Command Processor (CP). After seeing how open Tenstorrent is, it's hard to deal with this. With Tenstorrent, I feel confident that if there's an issue, I can debug and fix it. With AMD, I don't." The $15,000 TinyBox system relies on "cheaper" gaming-oriented GPUs, rather than traditional enterprise solutions—this oddball approach has attracted a number of customers, but the latest announcements likely signal another delay. Yesterday's tweet continued to state: "we are exploring Intel, working on adding Level Zero support to tinygrad. We also added a $400 bounty for XMX support. We are also (sadly) exploring a 6x GeForce RTX 4090 GPU box. At least we know the software is good there. We will revisit AMD once we have an open and reproducible build process for the driver and firmware. We are willing to dive really deep into hardware to make it amazing. But without access, we can't."

After giving a vivid GTC talk, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang took on a Q&A session with many interesting ideas for debate. One of them is addressing the pressing concerns surrounding AI hallucinations and the future of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). With a tone of confidence, Huang reassured the tech community that the phenomenon of AI hallucinations—where AI systems generate plausible yet unfounded answers—is a solvable issue. His solution emphasizes the importance of well-researched and accurate data feeding into AI systems to mitigate these occurrences. "The AI shouldn't just answer; it should do research first to determine which of the answers are the best," noted Mr. Huang as he added that for every single question, there should be a rule that makes AI research the answer. This also refers to Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), where LLMs fetch data from external sources, like additional databases, for fact-checking.

Another interesting comment made by the CEO is that the pinnacle of AI evolution—Artificial General Intelligence—is just five years away. Many people working in AI are divided between the AGI timeline. While Mr. Huang predicted five years, some leading researchers like Meta's Yann LeCunn think we are far from the AGI singularity threshold and will be stuck with dog/cat-level AI systems first. AGI has long been a topic of both fascination and apprehension, with debates often revolving around its potential to exceed human intelligence and the ethical implications of such a development. Critics worry about the unpredictability and uncontrollability of AGI once it reaches a certain level of autonomy, raising questions about aligning its objectives with human values and priorities. Timeline-wise, no one knows, and everyone makes their prediction, so time will tell who was right.

Jensen Huang has been talking to media outlets following the conclusion of his keynote presentation at NVIDIA's GTC 2024 conference—an NBC TV "exclusive" interview with the Team Green boss has caused a stir in tech circles. Jim Cramer's long-running "Squawk on the Street" trade segment hosted Huang for just under five minutes—NBC's presenter labelled the latest edition of GTC the "Woodstock of AI." NVIDIA's leader reckoned that around $1 trillion of industry was in attendance at this year's event—folks turned up to witness the unveiling of "Blackwell" B200 and GB200 AI GPUs. In the interview, Huang estimated that his company had invested around $10 billion into the research and development of its latest architecture: "we had to invent some new technology to make it possible."

Industry watchdogs have seized on a major revelation—as disclosed during the televised NBC report—Huang revealed that his next-gen AI GPUs "will cost between $30,000 and $40,000 per unit." NVIDIA (and its rivals) are not known to publicly announce price ranges for AI and HPC chips—leaks from hardware partners and individuals within industry supply chains are the "usual" sources. An investment banking company has already delved into alleged Blackwell production costs—as shared by Tae Kim/firstadopter: "Raymond James estimates it will cost NVIDIA more than $6000 to make a B200 and they will price the GPU at a 50-60% premium to H100...(the bank) estimates it costs NVIDIA $3320 to make the H100, which is then sold to customers for $25,000 to $30,000." Huang's disclosure should be treated as an approximation, since his company (normally) deals with the supply of basic building blocks.

Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) is delighted to announce the addition of 45 new members to its thriving community since November, 2023. This remarkable influx of members underscores UEC's position as a unifying force, bringing together industry leaders to build a complete Ethernet-based communication stack architecture for high-performance networking. As a testament to UEC's commitment and the vibrant growth of its community, members shared their excitement about the recent developments. The community testimonials, accessible on our Testimonial page, reflect the positive impact UEC is having on its members. These testimonials highlight the collaborative spirit and the shared vision for the future of high-performance networking.

In the four months since November 2023, when UEC began accepting new members, the consortium has experienced an impressive growth of 450%. In October 2023, UEC boasted a distinguished membership comprising 10 steering members, marking the initial steps towards fostering collaboration in the high-performance networking sector. Now, the community is flourishing with the addition of 45 new member companies, reflecting an extraordinary expansion that demonstrates the industry's recognition of UEC's commitment. With a total of 715 industry experts actively engaged in the eight working groups, UEC is positioned at the forefront of industry collaboration, driving advancements in Ethernet-based communication technologies.

MIPS, a leading developer of efficient and configurable compute cores, today announced the company's global expansion with the launch of a new R&D center in Austin, TX, making this the second office expansion in Texas after Dallas. MIPS plans to tap into the growing AI engineering talent in Texas and continue to build deeper roots in the community by partnering with local universities and schools. In addition to creating new job opportunities within the local community, each location will support MIPS' RISC-V research and development efforts, while furthering the company's strategic focus on giving customers the freedom to innovate compute in the AI-centric automotive, data center and embedded markets.

"MIPS' global expansion marks a strategic step forward in the company's growth, especially given our focus on AI and the wide and diverse talent available in the cities where we operate," said Sameer Wasson, CEO of MIPS. "The acceleration of AI-based processing and rapid adoption of RISC-V is on an upward trajectory as engineers continue to seek solutions that deliver the ability to innovate and design without constraints. We are rapidly growing our team and accelerating product roadmaps to enable AI-based systems with better scalability, low power efficiency, real-time multi-threading processing and enhanced configurability, while reducing customers' time to market."

Have you ever dreamed of having a real conversation with an NPC in a video game? Not just one gated within a dialogue tree of pre-determined answers, but an actual conversation, conducted through spontaneous action and reaction? Lately, a small R&D team at Ubisoft's Paris studio, in collaboration with Nvidia's Audio2Face application and Inworld's Large Language Model (LLM), have been experimenting with generative AI in an attempt to turn this dream into a reality. Their project, NEO NPC, uses GenAI to prod at the limits of how a player can interact with an NPC without breaking the authenticity of the situation they are in, or the character of the NPC itself.

Considering that word—authenticity—the project has had to be a hugely collaborative effort across artistic and scientific disciplines. Generative AI is a hot topic of conversation in the videogame industry, and Senior Vice President of Production Technology Guillemette Picard is keen to stress that the goal behind all genAI projects at Ubisoft is to bring value to the player; and that means continuing to focus on human creativity behind the scenes. "The way we worked on this project, is always with our players and our developers in mind," says Picard. "With the player in mind, we know that developers and their creativity must still drive our projects. Generative AI is only of value if it has value for them."

NVIDIA's freshly unveiled "Blackwell" B200 and GB200 AI GPUs will be getting plenty of coverage this year, but many organizations will be sticking with current or prior generation hardware. Team Green is in the process of shipping out compromised "Hopper" designs to customers in China, but the region's appetite for powerful AI-crunching hardware is growing. Last year's China-specific H800 design, and the older "Ampere" A800 chip were deemed too potent—new regulations prevented further sales. Recently, AMD's Instinct MI309 AI accelerator was considered "too powerful to gain unconditional approval from the US Department of Commerce." Natively-developed solutions are catching up with Western designs, but some institutions are not prepared to queue up for emerging technologies.

NVIDIA's new H20 AI GPU as well as Ada Lovelace-based L20 PCIe and L2 PCIe models are weakened enough to get a thumbs up from trade regulators, but likely not compelling enough for discerning clients. The Telegraph believes that NVIDIA's uncompromised H100 AI GPU is currently in use at several Chinese establishments—the report cites information presented within four academic papers published on ArXiv, an open access science website. The Telegraph's news piece highlights one of the studies—it was: "co-authored by a researcher at 4paradigm, an AI company that was last year placed on an export control list by the US Commerce Department for attempting to acquire US technology to support China's military." Additionally, the Chinese Academy of Sciences appears to have conducted several AI-accelerated experiments, involving the solving of complex mathematical and logical problems. The article suggests that this research organization has acquired a very small batch of NVIDIA H100 GPUs (up to eight units). A "thriving black market" for high-end NVIDIA processors has emerged in the region—last Autumn, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) published an in-depth article about ongoing smuggling activities.

Canalys' latest forecast predicts that an estimated 48 million AI-capable PCs will ship worldwide in 2024, representing 18% of total PC shipments. But this is just the start of a major market transition, with AI-capable PC shipments projected to surpass 100 million in 2025, 40% of all PC shipments. In 2028, Canalys expects vendors to ship 205 million AI-capable PCs, representing a staggering compound annual growth rate of 44% between 2024 and 2028.

These PCs, integrating dedicated AI accelerators, such as Neural Processing Units (NPUs), will unlock new capabilities for productivity, personalization and power efficiency, disrupting the PC market and delivering significant value gains to vendors and their partners.

NVIDIA announced today that leading AI application developers across a wide range of industries are using NVIDIA digital human technologies to create lifelike avatars for commercial applications and dynamic game characters. The results are on display at GTC, the global AI conference held this week in San Jose, Calif., and can be seen in technology demonstrations from Hippocratic AI, Inworld AI, UneeQ and more.

NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for speech and animation, NVIDIA NeMo for language, and NVIDIA RTX for ray-traced rendering are the building blocks that enable developers to create digital humans capable of AI-powered natural language interactions, making conversations more realistic and engaging.

ASRock Rack Inc., a leading innovative server company, is announcing its 6U8X-EGS2 series at booth 1617 during the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference in San Jose, USA. The 6U8X-EGS2 NVIDIA H100 and 6U8X-EGS2 NVIDIA H200 are ASRock Rack's most powerful AI training systems, capable of accommodating NVIDIA HGX H200 8-GPUs. The 6U rack mounts are able of providing airflow for the highest CPU and GPU performance. In addition to the eight-way configuration, the 6U8X-EGS2 series offers 12 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe drive bays and multiple PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, as well as a 4+4 PSU for full redundancy.

ASRock Rack is also developing servers that support the new NVIDIA HGX B200 8-GPU to handle the most demanding generative AI applications, accelerate large language models, and cater to data analytics and high-performance computing workloads. "At GTC, NVIDIA announced its new NVIDIA Blackwell platform, and we are glad to contribute to the new era of computing by providing a wide range of server hardware products that will support it," said Hunter Chen, Vice President at ASRock Rack. "Our products provide organizations with the foundation to transform their businesses and leverage the advancements of accelerated computing."

ASUS today announced its participation at the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference, where it will showcase its solutions at booth #730. On show will be the apex of ASUS GPU server innovation, ESC NM1-E1 and ESC NM2-E1, powered by the NVIDIA MGX modular reference architecture, accelerating AI supercomputing to new heights. To help meet the increasing demands for generative AI, ASUS uses the latest technologies from NVIDIA, including the B200 Tensor Core GPU, the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, and H200 NVL, to help deliver optimized AI server solutions to boost AI adoption across a wide range of industries.

To better support enterprises in establishing their own generative AI environments, ASUS offers an extensive lineup of servers, from entry-level to high-end GPU server solutions, plus a comprehensive range of liquid-cooled rack solutions, to meet diverse workloads. Additionally, by leveraging its MLPerf expertise, the ASUS team is pursuing excellence by optimizing hardware and software for large-language-model (LLM) training and inferencing and seamlessly integrating total AI solutions to meet the demanding landscape of AI supercomputing.