Nvidia reveals Titan V, its AI-focused graphics card

Nvidia has launched the most powerful graphics processor unit (GPU) it has ever built, aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence applications and machine learning algorithms.

The Nvidia Titan V is the first consumer-level GPU that makes use of the graphics card company's latest Volta architecture.

But at nearly $3,000 it is really aimed at developers, researchers and companies that wish to create and power AI systems that tap into the parallel processing capabilities of GPU, helping them crunch through massive amounts of data more efficiently than central processing units would.

With a claimed 110 teraflops of compute power delivered through its 21 billion transistors, 5,120 CUDS cores and 12GB of second-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM2), the Titan V is a significant step up from its predecessor, the Titan X, and Nvidia believes it should be able to handle AI simulation and modelling with suitable aplomb.

"Our vision for Volta was to push the outer limits of high performance computing and AI. We broke new ground with its new processor architecture, instructions, numerical formats, memory architecture and processor links," said Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang.

"With Titan V, we are putting Volta into the hands of researchers and scientists all over the world. I can't wait to see their breakthrough discoveries."

While companies with large coffers and their own data centres can tap into the Volta architecture capabilities with Nvidia's enterprise-grade Tesla cards, these are more costly than the Titan V.

So while PC gamers with deep pockets will be able to get higher frame-rates in video games and people working on video editing and graphics-heavy computer-assisted design applications are likely to see smoother performance, the Titan V really stands as a gateway for developers to move into AI and machine learning without the need for prohibitively expensive computer and server setups.

This could help fuel the rise of more AI startups, particularly in the UK's technology startup scene, where many fledgling businesses are exploring the use of smart algorithms and machine learning systems.

Picture courtesy of Nvidia