We’re not even a full week into 2026 yet, but Nvidia has already announced several products and updates to start the new year. Nvidia’s new Vera Rubin architecture was launched earlier than expected at CES, joined by announcements for its own Tesla-rivaling self-driving car technology, and the latest updates coming to DLSS, G-Sync display tech, and the GeForce Now cloud gaming platform.
While none of these hold quite the same appeal as a new generation of consumer graphics cards — something we might see at CES 2027, following the RTX 50-series launch last year — it can still be a lot to parse, especially through the vast slurry of everything else being promoted at the giant Consumer Electronics Show. We’ve rounded up the most significant announcements that Nvidia has made so far to help you stay on top of the news.
Vera Rubin ‘AI supercomputer’
Nvidia launched the Vera Rubin platform during its CES keynote, its next-generation successor to the Blackwell architecture that’s currently used in its most powerful AI chips. Nvidia says this new architecture, which is named after American astronomer Vera Rubin, can train large “mixture of experts” (MoE) AI models as quickly as Blackwell, but with far greater efficiency. Dion Harris, Nvidia’s senior director of HPC and AI infrastructure solutions, described Vera Rubin as “six chips that make one AI supercomputer,” which include the Vera CPU, Rubin GPU, NVLink 6th-gen switch, Connect-X9 NIC, BlueField4 DPU, and Spectrum-X 102.4T CPO.
Autonomous driving solutions
Nvidia is racing against Tesla and Waymo to build technology that will allow cars to fully drive themselves without human assistance, and it may now have the edge. Alpamayo, a newly announced portfolio of AI models, simulation blueprints, and datasets, can give vehicles level 4 autonomy — allowing them to fully drive themselves under specific conditions. “Not only does it take sensor input and activates steering wheel, brakes, and acceleration, it also reasons about what action it is about to take,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during the presentation.
The first passenger car that will be available with this tech is the new Mercedes-Benz CLA, with AI-assisted driving features coming to the US this year. Nvidia’s answer to Full Self-Driving is impressive, according to my colleague Andrew J. Hawkins, who took it for a test-drive, and says that Tesla should be concerned.
The next major update to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) feature is now available for all RTX GPUs, providing improvements to image quality and fewer artifacts compared to DLSS 4. This DLSS 4.5 update includes Nvidia’s second-generation Super Resolution transformer model and is supported across more than 400 games and apps via Nvidia’s app.
This is the technology that allows supported games to be played at higher resolutions without compromising frame rates, a valuable feature for PC gamers with older Nvidia RTX graphics cards in their systems. Those with newer GPUs will see greater benefits from DLSS 4.5, however: it will run faster on RTX 40- and 50-series cards and provides a 6x Multi Frame Generation mode for RTX 50-series GPUs that generates up to five additional frames for every frame rendered.
GeForce Now is coming to Linux and Fire TV
Nvidia is planning to launch native GeForce Now apps for Linux and Amazon’s Fire TV devices in the coming months, giving more people who may not have adequate gaming hardware access to the cloud streaming service. The first beta will be available for the Ubuntu 24.04 Linux distro, before expanding to additional distributions in the coming weeks. A GeForce Now app for Fire TV Stick 4K Plus and 4K Max is expected to launch early this year. Nvidia is also introducing full flight control support for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in GeForce Now, allowing joysticks and yokes from Thrustmaster and Logitech to work on the cloud gaming service.
A new set of G-Sync Pulsar monitors is launching on January 7th that use a built-in light sensor to automatically adjust brightness and color based on your room lighting. Each model is a 27-inch IPS display running at 1440p and up to 360Hz refresh rate, with prices starting at $599.
“In bright daylight conditions, it increases brightness and shifts to a color that’s cooler in temperature,” says Michael McSorley, product marketing manager at Nvidia, in a briefing with The Verge. “At night, or in darker rooms, it reduces brightness and uses warmer tones to minimize glare and eyestrain.”
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