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The annual Computex computer expo kicks off in Taepei this weekend. And this year’s show is shaping up to be the most packed in years.
Computex rivals CES for the most important PC trade show of the year, and in most years is attended by not only the numerous local Taiwanese firms (Asus, MSI, ASRock, and others), but the major chip developers have been increasing their own presence as well. These days, while CES itself tends to land more high-profile announcements, in recent years it’s been Computex that has delivered on more substantial announcements. This is largely because tech firms have aligned their product schedules to roll out near gear in the second half of the year, when retail sales are stronger due to the back-to-school and holiday shopping periods.
This year’s show, in turn, is looking to be an especially big year for the PC ecosystem. All the major PC chip firms – AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and the 4th Musketeer, Qualcomm – are holding keynote addresses at this year’s show, where they’re expected to announce new slates of PC products to ship later this year. In a normal year there is typically only major announcements from one or two of the major chip firms, so having all four of them at the show delivering lengthy keynotes is setting things up for what should be an exceptional show.
And while the show doesn’t officially open until Monday, media briefings are already well underway on the ground. Our own Gavin Bonshor has been in Taiwan since Tuesday for Intel’s 2024 Tech Tour, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. As a result, we’re expecting a deluge of announcements from the major chip makers over the next few days.
As has become customary these days, the keynotes from all four chip vendors will be broadcast live. And while the local time zone for Taiwan (UTC +8) does mean that these announcements are at relatively odd hours, most are still taking place in what are reasonable hours to watch them back in North America. And for those of you who can’t catch them live, AnandTech will be live blogging most of these keynotes.
So without further ado, here’s a look at the Computex 2024 keynote schedule, and what we’re expecting to see from those presentations.NVIDIA: What’s Next for the AI Ecosystem
When: June 2nd, 7:00am ET (4:00am PT)
What: NVIDIA’s leather jacket-wielding CEO Jensen Huang will be presenting a talk “outlining what’s next for the AI ecosystem.”
Description: NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a live keynote on June 2 at 7 p.m. Taiwan Time at the NTU Sports Center and will share how the era of AI is driving a new industrial revolution across the globe.
Where To Watch: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/events/computex/
What To Expect: Of the 4 Comuptex-aligned keynotes, NVIDIA’s is both the first and the most mysterious. The company has not telegraphed its intentions for its keynote – or even how long it will run. And with virtually all of NVIDIA’s products intersecting the AI market in some fashion, the “AI ecosystem” could conceivably cover anything from servers to smartphones.
With that said, NVIDIA is coming into this show as the vendor farthest from the start of their next product cycle. The company already presented a detailed roadmap for it’s all-important server products at their own GTC conference two months ago, leaving them with relatively little to announce at this spring’s expo. And NVIDIA’s consumer GPUs have traditionally followed a 2+ year cadence, meaning they’re not due for refresh until later this year at the earliest. Still, NVIDIA is solidly in the driver’s seat of its own destiny right now thanks to the wild success of its Grace Hopper-based accelerators, so the company can (and will) do whatever it pleases.
Notably, even NVIDIA’s keynote itself is a big rogue.
