Nvidia caught the imaginations of many technology enthusiasts on Tuesday with its show-closing, 'just one more thing'- style reveal of the Project Digits AI supercomputer. But seasoned graphics chip designer Raja Koduri and disruptive AI server startup Tiny Corp were not enchanted by the small golden box or blinded by Jensen's shimmering jacket. Both have publicly scorned Nvidia's Grace Blackwell AI Supercomputer.
At first glance, the purported provision of 1 PFLOPS of performance in such a tiny device might seem like a vision of the future, even if it is priced at $3,000. As told by the Nvidia CEO, we might believe that Project Digits is akin to AI alchemy in a box. But all that glistens isn’t gold. The spec of the headlining GB10 Superchip, the “1 PFLOP FP4 AI Compute,” is a somewhat deceptive hint to Raja Koduri and Tiny Corp (founded by American security hacker George Hotz, AKA geohot).
Koduri’s Project Digits takedown is what you probably could describe as a gentle geeky joke with a sprinkling of cynicism. The graphics chip design icon posted, “Divide flops by 4 and multiply dollars by 2. A CES (20+25)² tip for staying grounded,” poking fun at the green team.
Divide flops by 4 and multiply dollars by 2A CES (20+25) ² tip for staying groundedJanuary 7, 2025
Koduri later elaborated that - in contrast to the big FP4 claims - by his calculations, the FP16 performance of the Project Digits AI supercomputer wasn’t that impressive. Koduri estimated that the FP16 performance of the upcoming GeForce RTX 5070 and even the $250 Intel Arc B580 “seems close” to what a Project Digits machine could muster.
You may remember last year's news coverage involving Tiny Corp and its TinyBox project. In brief, Tiny Corp and its founder were very publicly displeased with AMD’s drivers. However, its plan to democratize AI acceleration by using (AMD) gaming GPUs instead of even more costly pro/enterprise alternatives was perhaps too bold. The firm managed to grab the attention of AMD publicly, and even Dr. Lisa Su and the red team were quite gracious despite the startup’s abrasive posturing and demands.
An AI swindle?
Fast forward to CES 2025, and Tiny Corp hasn’t lost its abrasive edge. “People are begging to get swindled by a $3,000 box that says AI on the side. We always get asked if we'll launch something at that price point. We won't,” grumbled Tiny Corp before advising its casual followers to “Just buy a gaming PC.”
People are begging to get swindled by a $3,000 box that says AI on the side. We always get asked if we'll launch something at that price point. We won't.Just buy a gaming PC.January 7, 2025
Earlier in the day, Tiny Corp had become seemingly irritated by the Project Digits announcement. “This is marketing. FP4 is unusable, it's 500 TFLOPS of FP8. tinybox green has 4 PFLOPS of FP8, 8x more powerful.”
Nvidia’s Project Digits won’t be available until May when it is expected to roll out for around $3,000. TinyBox computers, starting from $15,000, are available for the ‘red’ model with 738 FP16 TFLOPS and “mediocre” driver quality (another barb cast at AMD).
