At CES 2025, NVIDIA unveiled Project DIGITS, a compact AI supercomputer packing the Grace Blackwell Superchip. While its primary target audience includes AI researchers and developers, VFX professionals might want to keep an eye on this pint-sized powerhouse. With up to a petaflop of AI performance and a design tailored for high-intensity tasks, Project DIGITS could shake up rendering pipelines, denoising workflows, and even arduous analysis tasks—if it delivers as promised.
Compact AI Meets Heavy-Duty Rendering
The heart of Project DIGITS is the Grace Blackwell Superchip, combining a 20-core Grace CPU and Blackwell architecture GPU. NVIDIA claims it’s capable of running large language models with up to 200 billion parameters (or 400 billion with dual setups). For VFX artists and post-production professionals, that raw power could mean offloading demanding render jobs, enhancing machine learning-driven tasks like motion tracking or neural rendering, and taking GPU-intensive denoisers to the next level.
While traditional workstations can handle these jobs, many fall short when it comes to real-time AI-based processes or large-scale simulations. Or, you know, are being used for work and can’t be reserved for hours for just one job. Project DIGITS, with its 128GB of unified memory and up to 4TB NVMe SSD storage, promises to keep up with complex data-heavy operations—potentially making it an excellent option for smaller teams or studios that can’t always afford a multi-GPU server setup.
Is It Ready for Your Workflow?
Before you start making space for it on your desk (or under it), there are some caveats to keep in mind. NVIDIA is clearly targeting AI research and development first, so its capabilities for VFX pipelines are still untested in the wild. While the spec sheet sounds impressive, the big question is how stable and reliable this system will be under the typical demands of production environments. Render queues crashing in the middle of a project? Not so fun.
The potential for offloading tasks like GPU-based simulations or AI-driven rotoscoping is promising, but until Project DIGITS lands in the hands of artists and reviewers, we can’t be sure how well it handles real-world workflows.
Small Size, Big Ambitions
Another potential selling point is its compact form factor. NVIDIA hasn’t released dimensions, but early glimpses suggest it’s designed to fit in tight spaces—ideal for cluttered edit suites or smaller VFX labs where full-sized workstations aren’t an option. The size could also make it a viable option for freelancers or smaller teams looking to augment their current setups without overhauling their hardware footprint.
With a starting price of $3,000, Project DIGITS might not be cheap, but for a system offering this level of power, it’s not outrageous either. For more details, visit NVIDIA’s official Project DIGITS page.
The Verdict: One to Watch
For VFX professionals, Project DIGITS offers exciting possibilities: offloading render duties, enhancing machine learning-based processes, and speeding up AI-driven tools like denoisers and rotoscoping assistants. But it’s also uncharted territory—its real-world performance, stability, and ability to integrate into production workflows remain question marks until it’s been put through its paces.
If you’re itching to test new tech, keep your eyes peeled for reviews and hands-on reports from fellow professionals. And as always, tread carefully before committing it to your main pipeline—especially on a deadline.
NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS may be small, but if it delivers, it could punch well above its weight. Whether that’s enough to revolutionize VFX workflows—or just become a useful sidekick for heavier lifting—remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
