Nvidia: $249 Palm-Sized Supercomputer Is a Game-Changer for AI Hobbyists

Nvidia today unveiled its most affordable supercomputer yet, the $249 Jetson Orin Nano Super.

This tiny device, which fits in the palm of your hand, can help hobbyists, students, and small businesses power their own large language models, build AI agents, and deploy AI-based robots. It’s best suited “for those interested in developing skills in generative AI, robotics or computer vision” who want to “transform ideas into reality,” says Nvidia.

In a brief promo video, CEO Jensen Huang says the Jetson Orin Nano Super “runs everything that the HGX does,” referring to the Nvidia HGX AI Supercomputer. It can handle “almost 70 trillion operations per second,” or 67 INT8 TOPS, while only drawing 25 watts of power. Compared with its predecessor, the Nano Super has 50% more memory at 1023GB/S.

“General humanoid robotics are nearly upon us,” says Huang.

Those who already own the Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit can boost its performance to meet that of the new offering with a software update. Though the hardware remains the same, the update enables a new power mode, which increases the GPU, memory, and CPU clocks. That developer kit is being renamed the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit.

(Credit: Nvidia)

Although the Jetson Orin Nano Super brings much more power into hobbyist homes, it’s still a far cry from the 200,000 H100 and H200 Nvidia GPUs powering Elon Musk’s supercomputer, which he eventually wants to expand to 1 million. Still, it could make generative AI more accessible and affordable to the masses.

Nvidia is also rumored to be releasing two next-gen graphics gaming cards at CES 2025, the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 for its Predator Orion 7000 desktop systems.