Nvidia announces new AI chip for personal computers

Nvidia has announced a new chip for personal computers as it moves into the consumer market for devices integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

“This reinvention of the computer is as big of a deal as the reinvention of the phone into what we now know as the smartphone,” Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang said as he unveiled the RTX Spark chip.

Huang made the announcement on Monday as he delivered a keynote speech ahead of the opening of the Computex technology show in Taipei, Taiwan.

Separately on Sunday, the US tightened its rules on selling Nvidia’s most advanced chips to Chinese firms.

The RTX Spark is “a new superchip… for the era of personal AI agents – offering a new class of computer that moves from tool to teammate,” Nvidia said on its website.

It will be included in a new line of Windows PCs made by Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft Surface and MSI. They are due to be available in the autumn, with models from Acer and Gigabyte to follow.

The move marks a challenge to high-profile names in the PC market like Apple and Intel.

The AI boom has helped Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company, with a stock market valuation of more than $5tn (£3.7tn).

On Sunday, the US ‌Department of Commerce moved to close a potential loophole that may have allowed the export of the most advanced AI technology, like Nvidia’s Blackwell processors, to subsididiaries of Chinese companies based outside China.

Washington has been trying to stop Chinese firms buying the advanced computer chips needed to develop key AI technology.