Key Points:
- Jensen Huang will deliver the GTC 2026 keynote, detailing Nvidia’s upcoming products and strategies.
- Nvidia’s recent deal with Groq and its LPU technology could lead to new inference solutions.
- The company might unveil its rumored gaming-focused laptop CPUs, the N1 and N1X.
- While significant for gaming, the new CPUs likely won’t match the revenue of Nvidia’s data center business.
Nvidia’s annual GTC conference in San Jose, California, kicks off Monday with CEO Jensen Huang’s highly anticipated keynote address. Starting at 1 p.m. ET, Huang will update developers, analysts, and the press on the company’s plans for the coming year from the SAP Center stage.
Huang, known for his signature leather jacket, typically fills his keynotes with numerous product launches and updates. This year’s event will likely follow suit. Expect to hear about Nvidia’s recent deal-making spree and how the AI chip giant is bringing those new technologies and capabilities into its own products.
One of Nvidia’s most interesting moves in the past year was its non-exclusive agreement in December to use chipmaker Groq’s inferencing technologies. Nvidia also hired Groq founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other key leaders. Groq designs chips called language processing units, or LPUs, specifically for running AI models. The company claims its processors can run large language and other AI models up to 10 times more efficiently than GPUs.
As the industry shifts from primarily training AI models to running them, companies are looking for more cost-effective chips to power AI software. Nvidia has always highlighted its GPUs’ efficiency. However, integrating Groq’s technology or introducing a dedicated inference chip could address worries that customers might choose more specialized processors over Nvidia’s GPUs in the future.
Nvidia might also finally reveal its rumored laptop CPU at GTC. Leaks suggest the company is ready to launch two chips, the N1 and N1X, for Windows laptops. These processors will use Arm’s architecture, similar to Qualcomm’s, but will focus on gaming.
Nvidia’s GPUs are incredibly popular with gamers, and a new CPU could achieve similar success. Nvidia chips already power Nintendo’s Switch and Switch 2 consoles and have appeared in other computers, so a laptop CPU isn’t a huge surprise. This move would also keep Nvidia in good standing with gamers as the company focuses more on data centers.
However, don’t expect these chips to bring in the same massive revenue as Nvidia’s GPUs and networking products. In 2025, the company’s gaming division made $22.5 billion, while its data center business pulled in $193.5 billion.
