At CES 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that the company has plans for a new desktop central processor (CPU) co-designed with MediaTek. The CPU was unveiled as part of Nvidia’s “Project DIGITS” desktop, which features Nvidia’s latest “Blackwell” AI chip and is priced at $3,000. While the desktop is currently targeting AI developers and is not yet a mass-market product, the collaboration with MediaTek aims to bring an energy-efficient CPU to a broader market.
Huang emphasized that MediaTek would be able to sell the CPU to other markets, and Nvidia’s collaboration is mutually beneficial. “They could provide that to us, and they could keep that for themselves and serve the market. It was a great win-win,” Huang explained. The CPU is designed to challenge the dominance of Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Qualcomm in the consumer and business computer markets.
Nvidia is currently targeting AI developers with Project DIGITS, which runs a Linux-based operating system designed for AI workloads. Huang also hinted at future plans for the desktop CPU but did not disclose specifics. However, he mentioned Nvidia’s strategy to bridge the gap between the Linux OS commonly used by AI developers and Windows, the widely used consumer OS, through the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
“We’re going to make that a mainstream product,” Huang said, noting that Nvidia would support it with professional-grade software, and PC manufacturers would bring the product to end users.