Leaks: Nvidia-Powered Windows 11 PCs Set to Debut

Multiple leaks point to a Monday reveal of new Nvidia chipsets that will power Windows 11 on Arm-based PCs this year. Nvidia has allegedly created multiple chipset tiers, and Dell, Microsoft, and other hardware makers will allegedly announce new PCs, all timed for the opening day of the Computex conference in Taiwan.

Rumors about Nvidia’s re-entry into PC chipsets–the firm powered the first Arm-based Surface RT laptops back in 2012–have come and gone for years, with many pointing to a secret Microsoft/Qualcomm exclusivity arrangement that’s never been confirmed as the major reason for the delays. And though the most recent reports from earlier this year were curiously more specific and highly confused, it did seem like a release was imminent this year.

Now we have new leaks. And they indicate that we don’t have long to wait to see what Nvidia has in store for Windows 11 on Arm.

Axios reports that Nvidia will “debut the first Windows [11 on Arm] computers that use its chips as the main processor [since 2012].” It will do so with Microsoft, as the chips were designed in partnership with the software giant, which, to date, has closely aligned itself with Qualcomm and its Snapdragon X family of Arm-based chips for PCs.

Axios expects to see new Nvidia-powered PCs from Microsoft Surface and other PC makers, though only Dell is named explicitly. And Microsoft will make related announcements about AI agents running locally on these (and presumably other) PCs, though it’s not clear if that will happen at Computex, Build (which is also getting underway this coming week), or both.

Separately, the Videocardz hardware enthusiast site provides what it says are details about Nvidia’s new PC chips, which will apparently come in two major variants called N1 and N1x, each with two variants comprised of different CPU and CUDA core counts, and different ranges of RAM (8 to 16 GB for the N1 and 16 to 128 GB for the N1x). The N1 chips apparently run at 18 to 45 watts, which makes sense for the thin and light ultra-portable designs typically used with Snapdragon X chips. But the N1X chips allegedly consume 45 to 80 watts, which makes them more suitable for gaming laptops, portable workstations, or even desktop PCs.

It’s not clear how much we can trust that second report, as it mentions that at least one of the documents this information is based on is two years old. But something is happening, and even Nvidia has gotten in on the fun: On Friday, the company cryptically tweeted, “A new era of PC.” So we should know soon.