NVIDIA Unveils Project DIGITS: The World’s Smallest AI Supercomputer

CES 2023—NVIDIA has launched an innovative product that is set to revolutionize the AI landscape. Project DIGITS, hailed as the world’s smallest AI supercomputer, is designed to give researchers, data scientists, and students around the globe the power of advanced AI capabilities right at their desks. Featuring the new NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, this personal supercomputer boasts a petaflop of AI computing performance, enabling users to prototype and operate large AI models efficiently.

Project DIGITS: An Overview

NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS serves as a compact AI supercomputer that democratizes access to immense computing power. By integrating the advanced Grace Blackwell platform, it offers tools for effective AI model development. With this new technology, users can construct and run inference on models directly from their desktop computers, transitioning seamlessly to more robust cloud or data center environments when needed.

Jensen Huang’s Vision

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, emphasizes the significance of this development. ‘AI will be mainstream in every application for every industry,’ he stated. ‘With Project DIGITS, the Grace Blackwell Superchip comes to millions of developers.’ Huang believes that placing high-performance AI tools on the desks of data scientists and students empowers them to actively shape the unfolding AI era.

GB10 Superchip: Performance and Efficiency

Inside the GB10 Superchip

At the core of Project DIGITS lies the GB10 Superchip, which is built on the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell architecture. This system-on-a-chip (SoC) delivers a remarkable up to 1 petaflop of AI performance at FP4 precision, making it an impressive contender in the competitive AI space.

The GB10 Superchip integrates a cutting-edge NVIDIA Blackwell GPU, equipped with the latest CUDA® cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores. This setup includes a high-performance NVIDIA Grace™ CPU featuring 20 Arm architecture cores, which significantly enhance its power and efficiency. Notably, MediaTek played a key role in developing this Superchip, focusing on achieving unmatched power efficiency and connectivity.

Powering Innovation with Efficiency

Despite its high performance, Project DIGITS is designed to operate with energy efficiency in mind. It runs effectively on a standard electrical outlet, making powerful AI performance accessible to users without needing specialized power sources. Each unit includes 128GB of unified memory and up to 4TB of NVMe storage, facilitating the handling of extensive data required for running large language models and various AI applications.

Additionally, linking two Project DIGITS supercomputers via NVIDIA ConnectX® networking enables users to operate models with up to 405 billion parameters. This interconnected capability significantly enhances the processing power available to developers.

Scaling AI Development with Ease

From Prototyping to Production

The Grace Blackwell architecture ensures that developers can prototype, fine-tune, and test their models on Project DIGITS systems running the Linux-based NVIDIA DGX OS. Once models are prepared, moving them to NVIDIA DGX Cloud™ or a data center infrastructure becomes a seamless process. This flexibility is critical in today’s fast-paced tech environment, where agility in AI model deployment can yield significant competitive advantages.

Comprehensive AI Software Access

With Project DIGITS, users gain access to NVIDIA’s extensive software library, which supports a variety of development activities. This library includes software development kits, orchestration tools, and frameworks to assist in the prototyping process. Notably, users can leverage tools such as the NVIDIA NeMo™ framework for model fine-tuning and the NVIDIA RAPIDS™ libraries to enhance data science workflows.

Furthermore, NVIDIA enables developers to build sophisticated AI applications using resources like NVIDIA Blueprints and NVIDIA NIM™ microservices, accessible through the NVIDIA Developer Program. This comprehensive toolkit ensures that users can transition AI applications from experimental stages to production environments confidently.

Ensuring Support and Security

As projects move towards production, NVIDIA provides the NVIDIA AI Enterprise license, which guarantees enterprise-grade security and support. This component is crucial for businesses investing in AI to ensure that their applications remain reliable and secure throughout their lifecycle.

Availability and Pricing

NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS is set to hit the market in May 2023, with availability from NVIDIA and select partners. The starting price will be $3,000, making this powerful AI supercomputer an intriguing option for those wanting to harness AI’s potential without the vast infrastructure typically required for such capabilities.

Key Takeaways

NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS opens up a new chapter in AI development by providing powerful computing abilities within a compact system. With the introduction of the GB10 Superchip and its extensive capabilities, researchers and developers will find that they can innovate and deploy AI applications far more efficiently. As AI technology continues to transform various industries, Project DIGITS positions itself as a quintessential tool for those at the forefront of this evolution. The arrival of this AI supercomputer signifies a significant step towards making advanced AI resources more accessible to a broader audience.