Asus is first PC partner to launch its own version of Nvidia's Project Digits and I can't wait to see how it compares to the Ryzen AI Max 395

Asus’ new Ascent GX10 brings AI supercomputing power directly to developers
Promises 1000 TOPS of AI processing and can handle models up to 200 billion parameters
It’s cheaper than Nvidia DGX Spark, with less storage but similar performance

AI development is getting ever more demanding, and Asus wants to bring high-performance computing straight to the desks of developers, researchers, and data scientists with the Ascent GX10, a compact AI supercomputer powered by Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell GB10 Superchip.

Asus’s rival to Nvidia’s DGX Spark (previously Project Digits) is designed to handle local AI workloads, making it easier to prototype, fine-tune, and run impressively large models without relying entirely on cloud or data center resources.

The Ascent GX10 comes with 128GB of unified memory, and the Blackwell GPU with fifth-generation Tensor Cores and FP4 precision support means it can deliver up to 1000 TOPS of AI processing power. It also includes a 20-core Grace Arm CPU, which speeds up data processing and orchestration for AI inferencing and model tuning. Asus says it will allow developers to work with AI models of up to 200 billion parameters without running into major bottlenecks.

Powerful yet compact

“AI is transforming every industry, and the Asus Ascent GX10 is designed to bring this transformative power to every developer’s fingertips,” said KuoWei Chao, General Manager of Asus IoT and NUC Business Group.

“By integrating the Nvidia Grace Blackwell Superchip, we are providing a powerful yet compact tool that enables developers, data scientists, and AI researchers to innovate and push the boundaries of AI right from their desks.”

Asus has built the GX10 with NVLink-C2C, which provides more than five times the bandwidth of PCIe 5.0, allowing the CPU and GPU to share memory efficiently, improving performance across AI workloads.

The system also comes with an integrated ConnectX network interface, so two GX10 units can be linked together to handle even larger models, such as Llama 3.1 with 405 billion parameters.

Asus says the Ascent GX10 will be available for pre-order in Q2 2025. Pricing details have not yet been confirmed by Asus, but Nvidia says it will cost $2999 and come with 1TB of storage.

In comparison, Nvidia’s own DGX Spark is a thousand dollars more ($3999) and comes with 4TB of storage.

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