Computex showdown: Nvidia & MediaTek tipped to steal Windows-on-Arm spotlight
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There have been rumblings of an Nvidia arm-based CPU for the last few years, but the project just might be revealed next week.
At CES in January, Nvidia and MediaTek announced Project Digits, a personal AI supercomputer. Shortly after the announcement, Nvidia rebranded the Project Digits concept as the Nvidia DGX Spark, powered by the Grace Blackwell GB10 chipset.
Unfortunately, Nvidia and MediaTek's GB10 superchip is too large for most computers, which is where these rumored new chips come in.
According to rumors this month (collected by German outlet ComputerBase), Nvidia and MediaTek are slated to unveil a smaller, more laptop-friendly arm chipset at Computex in Taipei City, Taiwan, next week.
But what do we know about these new Nvidia and MediaTek chips so far?
The Nvidia/MediaTek N1 chips w direct rival to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series.
Nvidia and MediaTek's new chips are being called N1X and N1. The silicon will power desktops and laptops aimed at general users, unlike the DGX Spark, an AI supercomputer.
The N1X and N1 chips appear to combine MediaTek's Arm-based CPUs with Nvidia's Blackwell GPU technology. The N1X and N1 processors are currently expected to feature up to 10 Cortex-X925 high-performance cores and up to 10 Cortex-A725 cores, with less powerful configurations able to address more budget-conscious users.
Nvidia and MediaTek's N1X and N1 chips will utilize the Arm instruction set and run a version of Windows OS optimized for Arm-based chips.
This will make the Nvidia/MediaTek N1 chips a direct rival to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series. Due to the inclusion of Nvidia's Blackwell GPU tech, the N1X and N1 could also rival AMD's Ryzen AI Max APU.
SemiAccurate indicates that the N1X and N1 CPUs will hit the shelves in early 2026, due to technical hurdles that delayed the ship date.
This production timeline would make sense with a Computex announcement, as it gives Nvidia and MediaTek at least 7 months to resolve technical issues before the chips ship.
Based on the hardware powering these rumored N1X and N1 chips, we could see them implemented in powerful workstation machines, gaming rigs, and general consumer-level machines.
After all, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips are used in ultra-light and portable laptops, while AMD's Ryzen AI Max APU has been used for the Asus ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet and the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a mobile workstation.
We don't expect to see laptops or desktops with the rumored N1X and N1 processors until 2026. However, we could better understand what systems this chip will ship in at Computex next week, as Nvidia and MediaTek are both holding keynote presentations at the trade show on May 19 and May 20th.
And since Qualcomm's keynote presentation focuses more on AI than the highly anticipated second generation of Snapdragon X chips, Nvidia and MediaTek could steal the spotlight as the summer's darling Windows-on-Arm chipset.
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