Once I first noticed that picture of Nvidia’s new Challenge Digits mini PC unveiled at CES 2025, I couldn’t assist however discover the Apple affect — minimalist, glossy, subsequent to a monitor that appears like Apple’s Studio Show.
Apple’s newest Mac Mini is revolutionary in some ways, delivering the corporate’s spectacular M4 silicon in an environment friendly, inexpensive bundle. Home windows PCs haven’t but been in a position to attain the identical stage of design magnificence and general balanced unit.
May Nvidia’s new Mac Mini-like small-form-factor AI supercomputer usher in a significant disruption for Home windows PCs? Let’s dive into Challenge Digits, what it’s, and what it brings to the desk for the long run.
Challenge Digits: What it’s and what it isn’t
It’s a little bit unfair to check the Mac Mini and Nvidia’s Challenge Digits, primarily as a result of they aim vastly totally different customers and markets. In spite of everything, the Mac Mini is for dwelling customers who simply wish to do some internet shopping, media streaming, and possibly mild content material creation or gaming. And on the facet, you could have Apple Intelligence for AI in that ecosystem.
However then you could have Challenge Digits, a powerhouse mini PC infused with the facility of Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell GB10 Superchip. The thought right here is to pack an AI supercomputer right into a small chassis that’s usable by scientists, college students, and AI researchers in a really targeted method. That’s mirrored in its worth: A whopping $3,000 that proves it’s meant to be extra of a professional-level gadget. It launches round Could 2025.
Challenge Digits runs on the GB10 Superchip, meant to run giant language fashions (LLMs) with as much as 200 billion parameters. In the event you join two of them, they will collectively deal with as much as 405 billion parameters. It’s excellent for AI researchers and inference fashions.
Nvidia
But whereas the built-in GPU is fine-tuned for AI with 128GB of unified reminiscence, there’s no cause why Nvidia couldn’t adapt it to be used in a Home windows-like gaming PC sooner or later. Even now, Challenge Digits is already rather more highly effective than any conventional PC or laptop computer, with 1 petaflop of energy. (For comparability, trendy high-end gaming PCs solely attain as much as 10 teraflops — the equal of 0.01 petaflops.)
Mac Mini customers might use their techniques for some AI work, however most are simply utilizing them as private computer systems for mundane, private duties. Think about if Nvidia tuned Challenge Digits in that route? As is, Challenge Digits is an enthusiast- and professional-level product, however what if Nvidia honed it to grow to be just like the Mac Mini? A consumer-grade PC with unprecedented energy that’s even extra revolutionary than the M4 Mac Mini.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes AI will go mainstream and make its means into just about each business and side of human life. If he’s proper about that, a small but highly effective AI supercomputer could possibly be a game-changer, very like the smartphone was for on a regular basis life. (I wouldn’t doubt Jensen Huang, who’s been a near-unparalleled visionary to date.)
Nvidia
This implies Nvidia would need its AI to have extra private functions for on a regular basis customers, not only for analysis or knowledge heart functions. For now, Challenge Digits offers those that would usually be working in such environments the power to convey their work dwelling, and that’s one step nearer to bringing AI into the private dwelling area.
Nvidia already meddles within the shopper market, in fact. Simply have a look at their GeForce RTX GPUs, that are the corporate’s DNA — and AI got here after creating these graphics chips for avid gamers. So whereas Nvidia makes financial institution on knowledge facilities and AI, these functions aren’t the be-all and end-all for the corporate. Gaming stays necessary, and there stay loads of different shopper markets — like this — that Nvidia might discover.
Challenge Digits could possibly be a looming menace
Nvidia’s Challenge Digits mini supercomputer runs on Linux, not Home windows. A wierd selection, maybe, contemplating that Nvidia is already intimately conversant in Home windows drivers for its GPUs.
May this be an indication that Nvidia desires to maneuver away from Home windows, at the least in some capability? May it even imply that Nvidia desires to develop their very own working system, one which’s primarily based on Unix (very like Linux and macOS are) and never Home windows? This is able to be an Apple-like endeavor, paving the best way for Nvidia to have full management over their total portfolio by the use of in-house options.
Lenovo
This isn’t the primary rumbling of a Home windows disruption that we’ve heard at CES 2025. Final month, Valve introduced its “Powered by SteamOS” branding for companions, signaling a brand new period by which third-party gaming handhelds, laptops, and PCs will more and more run on SteamOS. Valve advised us extra about their plans at CES 2025, and we noticed the debut of the primary non-Valve SteamOS gaming handheld.
In brief, Microsoft must be scared of SteamOS. It really works effectively sufficient with out Home windows and it’s slowly changing Home windows avid gamers over. The Steam Deck has been the massive showcase for SteamOS for some time now, however with Valve opening it as much as every kind of different producers, we’re undoubtedly going to see a giant shift in years to come back.
Now, to be clear, Nvidia has made no indication that they plan to do something like this. All of that is hypothesis. However it might actually make some sense for Nvidia to start out forging their very own path, indifferent from Home windows and all its baggage. Nvidia has the capital and affect to make it occur, and so they might simply argue that their AI and {hardware} are so bespoke that they want bespoke software program options. In that case, Microsoft would have one thing higher than SteamOS to concern.
Thiago Trevisan / IDG
Certainly, I can see a doable near-future the place Nvidia doesn’t simply promote GPUs however total mini PCs to their board companions. How does a superpowered Asus ROG Strix Challenge Digits mini PC sound? It might have a GPU, CPU, and NPU all packed into one tiny unit — and that will surely really feel like Apple’s silicon and tight integration of {hardware}.
However you by no means know. The long run could possibly be boring. Nvidia might effectively follow Home windows PCs and take the better, less complicated, well-trodden path. It’s not like they couldn’t do huge issues right here, as Home windows PCs want the facility and tight integration that Nvidia’s {hardware} brings to the desk. Rumors counsel Nvidia is engaged on an Arm-powered PC chip now that Qualcomm’s long-leaked Arm Home windows exclusivity settlement has ended.
Think about a small Home windows PC the dimensions of a Mac Mini however operating on a superpowered chip that delivers RTX-grade graphics and next-gen AI efficiency. That is an space the place even Apple hasn’t but caught as much as Nvidia, and a stable execution of such an concept would sway shopper markets to new kind components and prospects.
