Jensen Huang teases reveal of 'a chip that will surprise the world' at next month's GTC

A screenshot from the Joe Rogan Experience #2422 podcast, showing Jensen Huang discussing Nvidia's early years in GPU design — (Image credit: Joe Rogan Experience)

Nvidia's regular GTC conference will soon kick off, taking place in San Jose, between March 16 and 19. From its very beginnings in 2008, the event has been all about what GPUs can be used for, other than gaming. And as he is wont to do, CEO Jensen Huang has been talking up what to expect.

In an interview with the Korea Economic Daily, Huang teased, "A chip that will surprise the world will be unveiled at GTC next month." Naturally, he did not specify much more about the chip beyond this, though one has to wonder what it would really take to 'surprise' tech fiends these days. For instance, 'a fresh GPU well within my budget' may sound ridiculous, but a girl can dream.

As for the 'surprising chip' itself, one could speculate that Huang is gesturing at the long-awaited N1X Arm chip for consumer PCs. For one thing, recent reports suggest the N1X could drop as soon as the end of March—so a deep dive right before, at GTC, would make sense.

Alternatively, the wider interview's focus on AI could also be a clue as to the identity of the chip. Huang discusses Nvidia's collaboration with SK hynix, and the latter company's plans for HBM4. It's hoped this latest iteration of super-fast memory can maximize the performance of Nvidia's Vera Rubin chip (Nvidia has also reportedly already placed an order for Samsung's next-gen High Bandwidth Memory, too).

A promotional image of Samsung's HBM4, showing a generic module and a stylized die shot — (Image credit: Samsung)

That alone suggests a continuing strong commitment to the industry—even if Nvidia's $100 billion investment plan in OpenAI has reportedly 'stalled'. In fact, when Korean media specifically asked about future investments in AI companies like the ChatGPT creator or Anthropic, Huang was reportedly evasive; he answered, "AI is not just a model; it’s an entire industry encompassing energy, semiconductors, data centers, the cloud, and the applications built on top of it."

So, while Nvidia is not pulling away from AI, it does sound like the company may be looking to diversify its portfolio. And lest you fret that Nvidia is becoming an AI-only company, there is reportedly an RTX 5090-beating GPU in the works too. Sources say this is much further off than the N1X Arm chip, suggesting a September release.

But then surely it wouldn't be completely ridiculous to expect the unveiling of a fresh GPU at the GPU Technology Conference, right? …Right?

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Jess has been writing about games for over ten years, spending the last seven working on print publications PLAY and Official PlayStation Magazine. When she’s not writing about all things hardware here, she’s getting cosy with a horror classic, ranting about a cult hit to a captive audience, or tinkering with some tabletop nonsense.

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