Arm is working on a new GPU design and has no less a target than Nvidia in its sights. That's quite the claim, but it's exactly what Israeli business website Globes is reporting.
Arm is said to be employing a team of up to 100 GPU engineers at its development center in Ra'anana, Israel. But what's not clear is what kind of graphics architecture they've been tasked to build, with the two obvious options being aimed at video rendering or AI training and inferencing.
Arm already has several GPU designs on its shelves, including the Mali and Immortalis series, which are typically offered as IP that chip makers can licence. Arm itself isn't in the business of making and selling GPUs. That applies to CPUs, too, which are the mainstay of its chip-design licensing business.
However, the Mali and Immortalis series are fairly traditional graphics units that are actually intended to process, well, graphics. That's a whole different ball game from building a GPU to process AI.
Granted, Nvidia's AI and gaming GPU architectures are developed in tandem and have shared elements. But there's a whole world of difference between a $40,000 Nvida AI chip and even its priciest desktop graphics cards.
Moreover, while Arm has form when it comes to both graphics processing and selling SoCs that include hardware for that specific job, it has no track record in either AI or selling discrete GPUs.
Unfortunately, the Globes story provides few insights into to any of the details. However, it does claim that the Ra'anana facility has been working with Israeli startup NeuReality on its new SR1 hardware for accelerating AI inferencing, which is said to be 90% cheaper than doing the same job with Nvidia GPUs.
All of which means it's hard to draw any firm conclusions. With that in mind, we'd suggest that it's pretty unlikely Arm's plan involves discrete gaming graphics cards. There's far, far more money to be made in cranking out an alternative to Nvidia's all-conquering AI hardware.
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On the other hand, those overlaps between graphics and AI acceleration remain. It definitely wouldn't be a complete surprise to see Arm's investments in latter spill over into benefits for gaming graphics.
What's more, with Qualcomm having launched what you might call the first really serious attempt to get an Arm CPU into the PC with the Snapdragon X series, what Arm does in graphics has the potential to be that little bit more relevant to PC gaming and especially mobile gaming.
In short, don't go expecting to buy an Arm graphics card next year. But you might just be playing PC games on an all-Arm handheld somewhere down the road.
