MediaTek And NVIDIA Strike A Deal To Build A Chipset With A Powerful GPU: Will Smartphones Get It?

MediaTek has reportedly struck a deal with NVIDIA to build chipsets that will have an NVIDIA GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). New SoC (System on a Chip) from MediaTek with an NVIDIA GPU could arrive as early as next year.

MediaTek is a big player in the smartphone market that has been giving Qualcomm tough competition. Its latest Dimensity 9200+ chipset is as good as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. It appears MediaTek and NVIDIA could build compact SoC for powerful and portable computing devices.

MediaTek And NVIDIA Will Build Chipset For Laptops And Mini-PCs?

While MediaTek may be a strong player in the smartphone market, it has around 20 percent market share in the portable computer market. Intel and AMD cumulatively control the majority of the laptop CPU and integrated GPU market.

MediaTek chipsets are commonly found in entry-level Chromebooks. Consumers prefer Intel or AMD processors with embedded GPUs inside midrange laptops.

A flagship chip with a powerful NVIDIA GPU could allow MediaTek to break the mold and enter into the high-end laptop segment. However, MediaTek appears to be aiming for an SoC design instead of a dedicated CPU, discrete GPU, and RAM combination that's common inside high-end laptops.

Will There Be MediaTek Chipsets With NVIDIA GPU For Smartphones?

NVIDIA has its own chipsets that are made up of ARM CPUs. Moreover, the recently released Jetson Orin NX has a 1,024-core Ampere GPU with 32 Tensor cores, plus an 8-core Cortex-A78AE CPU and 16GB of RAM with a TDP of 10-25W.

However, NVIDIA's solutions do not officially support Android or ChromeOS. On the other hand, MediaTek chipsets are optimized for both operating systems.

MediaTek currently relies on ARM GPUs. While they are powerful, ARM GPUs are nowhere close to the performance of NVIDIA's GPUS. Additionally, NVIDIA GPUs also possess accelerated AI capabilities.

MediaTek and NVIDIA collaboration could result in powerful chipsets along the lines of Apple's M series SoC. Hence, consumers can expect lightweight but powerful laptops with MediaTek CPU and NVIDIA GPU on a chipset in the near future.

It's not immediately clear if the upcoming MediaTek + NVIDIA chips will only be embedded inside Windows laptops. It is possible that the collaboration may result in comparatively low-power and TDP versions for smartphones too.