DGX Spark

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Nvidia sells tiny new computer that puts big AI on your desktop

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For the OS, the Spark is an ARM-based system that runs Nvidia’s DGX OS, an Ubuntu Linux-based operating system built specifically for GPU processing. It comes with Nvidia’s AI software stack preinstalled, including CUDA libraries and the company’s NIM microservices.

Prices for the DGX Spark start at US $3,999. That may seem like a lot, but given the cost of high-end GPUs with ample video RAM like the RTX Pro 6000 (about $9,000) or AI server GPUs (like $25,000 for a base-level H100), the DGX Spark may represent a far less expensive option overall, though it’s not nearly as powerful.

In fact, according to The Register, the GPU computing performance of the GB10 chip is roughly equivalent to an RTX 5070. However, the 5070 is limited to 12GB of video memory, which limits the size of AI models that can be run on such a system. With 128GB of unified memory, the DGX Spark can run far larger models, albeit at a slower speed than, say, an RTX 5090 (which typically ships with 24 GB of RAM). For example, to run the 120 billion-parameter larger version of OpenAI’s recent gpt-oss language model, you’d need about 80GB of memory, which is far more than you can get in a consumer GPU.

A callback to 2016

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang marked the occasion of the DGX Spark launch by personally delivering one of the first units to Elon Musk at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, echoing a similar delivery Huang made to Musk at OpenAI in 2016.

“In 2016, we built DGX-1 to give AI researchers their own supercomputer. I hand-delivered the first system to Elon at a small startup called OpenAI, and from it came ChatGPT,” Huang said in a statement. “DGX-1 launched the era of AI supercomputers and unlocked the scaling laws that drive modern AI. With DGX Spark, we return to that mission.”

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Nvidia announces DGX desktop “personal AI supercomputers”

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During Tuesday’s Nvidia GTX keynote, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled two “personal AI supercomputers” called DGX Spark and DGX Station, both powered by the Grace Blackwell platform. In a way, they are a new type of AI PC architecture specifically built for running neural networks, and five major PC manufacturers will build the supercomputers.

These desktop systems, first previewed as “Project DIGITS” in January, aim to bring AI capabilities to developers, researchers, and data scientists who need to prototype, fine-tune, and run large AI models locally. DGX systems can serve as standalone desktop AI labs or “bridge systems” that allow AI developers to move their models from desktops to DGX Cloud or any AI cloud infrastructure with few code changes.

Huang explained the rationale behind these new products in a news release, saying, “AI has transformed every layer of the computing stack. It stands to reason a new class of computers would emerge—designed for AI-native developers and to run AI-native applications.”

The smaller DGX Spark features the GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip with Blackwell GPU and fifth-generation Tensor Cores, delivering up to 1,000 trillion operations per second for AI.

Meanwhile, the more powerful DGX Station includes the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip with 784GB of coherent memory and the ConnectX-8 SuperNIC supporting networking speeds up to 800Gb/s.

The DGX architecture serves as a prototype that other manufacturers can produce. Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo will develop and sell both DGX systems, with DGX Spark reservations opening today and DGX Station expected later in 2025. Additional manufacturing partners for the DGX Station include BOXX, Lambda, and Supermicro, with systems expected to be available later this year.

Since the systems will be manufactured by different companies, Nvidia did not mention pricing for the units. However, in January, Nvidia mentioned that the base-level configuration for a DGX Spark-like computer would retail for around $3,000.

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