Meet the next next-generation: At Computex 2024 this morning, Nvidia announced the Rubin GPU architecture, the successor to Blackwell. Rubin GPUs are set to splashdown in 2026, bringing support for 8-Hi HBM4 stacks, and will be followed up with Rubin Ultra GPUs, supporting 12-Hi HBM4 stacks. A powerful new CPU called Vera has also been announced, as well as a Vera Rubin board combining the GPU and CPU into a superchip. The upcoming state-of-the-art processors are named after Vera Florence Cooper Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who established the presence of dark matter.
Waiting on Blackwell
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We are still waiting for the next-gen Blackwell GPUs, so it is understandable that the details on Rubin remain thin on the ground. Blackwell architecture parts are expected to debut as B100 and B200 GPUs starting later this year.
Once those first Blackwell GPUs have rolled out, Nvidia has lined up Blackwell Ultra. During today’s keynote, it was highlighted that Blackwell Ultra will push performance forward by adding 12-Hi HBM3E compatibility.
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Vera Rubin – CPU, GPU, and accelerator board
The Rubin architecture will debut with support for 8-Hi HBM4 stacks. We have already reported on leaks indicative of R100 CPUs, so that is how we would expect the first Rubin GPUs to land. The latest information we have says they could enter mass production in late 2025. This dovetails with Nvidia’s official announcement(s) today, penciling in Rubin for an (early) 2026 debut.
Rubin Ultra GPUs are set to follow up in 2027, in line with Nvidia's stated "one year rhythm" for data center releases. The architecture will earn its Ultra spurs due to its compatibility with 12-Hi HBM4 stacks.
The Nvidia slide we saw also mentioned the Vera CPU. This processor will feature on a new Vera Rubin accelerator board, alongside one of the aforementioned Rubin GPUs, and is destined to replace current offerings like the Grace Hopper superchip. At the time of writing, we don’t have details about what is new with the Vera CPU. One might suppose that the new Vera CPU will deliver various optimizations to the Arm CPU cores and/or a bolstered overall configuration.
Other highlighted qualities of the Rubin platform include the speedy NVLink 6 Switch performance of up to 3,600 GB/s, and a touted CX9 SuperNIC component offering up to 1,600 GB/s.
Our first reports on next-gen Rubin architecture GPUs were published way-back in November 2023, when hardware leaker @kopite7kimi first flagged up the codename and two GPUs: the R100 and the GR200.
