Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has announced its own computing solution aimed at deep-learning researchers at the GPU Technology Conference. Called Digits DevBox, the system includes four Titan X GPUs in quad-SLI, making it the most powerful configuration of GPU hardware in a single PC available today.

The box will feature the Digits software framework, which gives deep-learning researchers a series of tools that will enable them to configure and monitor deep neural networks, as well as process data. The system itself is powered by Ubuntu 14.04, and comes with the following frameworks and libraries installed: Caffe, Torch, Theano, BIDMach, cuDNN v2, and CUDA 7.0.

Other hardware includes an Asus X99 motherboard with an Intel Haswell-E Core i7  processor, a combination of mechanical and flash-based storage that includes 3×3 TB drives in RAID 5, as well as  M.2 SATA and SSDs along with a 1500W power supply.

The cost of the system at $15,000 is several times more than what you pay for just the hardware, so it’s clear Nvidia is also chrging a premium for its software-driven framework. The chip vendor is now taking registrations for the Digits DevBox, and there’s an online configurator as well that can be accessed by filling out this form.

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At the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced a developer kit for its self-driving car platform, dubbed Drive PX.

One of the key features of the platform is its hardware, which is powered  by two Tegra X1 chips and comes with the ability to process video simultaneously from 12 different HD cameras placed around a vehicle that feed information about the environment back to the system, thereby allowing Drive PX to facilitate surround view, collision avoidance, pedestrian detection, mirror-less operation, cross-traffic monitoring and driver-state monitoring.

Nvidia is billing deep learning as the integral differentiator for the Drive PX platform, with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang stating that the system is far more advanced than conventional Advanced Driver Assistance Systems available today, most of which center around lane guidance and collision prevention. Drive PX will be able to train itself to react to different situations, and there’s the added feature that any actions learned in one vehicle are shared with the platform as a whole.

Enabling the learning experience is a deep neural network software development kit called Digits that allows the Drive PX system to understand objects in the real world and react to ever-changing scenarios. The system will be available in May to select automakers, automotive suppliers and research institutions, with the developer kit priced at $10,000.

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Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jen Hsun Huang gave the world another look at the GPU successor to Maxwell at its GPU Technology Conference Conference (GTC 2015) in San Jose Tuesday.

Pascal was first announced as a mystery GPU between Maxwell and Volta at last year’s GTC. Tuesday’s announcement gives us the first concrete details of Pascal.

Huang said that Pascal, which is set to arrive in 2016, would have a ten-fold overall average improvement over Maxwell, and a four times boost in mixed-precision workloads. As far as performance per watt, it will offer a two-fold performance over Maxwell. However he later cautioned this was “CEO Math” and actual performance may vary.

Pascal will use a suite of new technologies, including 3D-stacked memory and NVLink (Huang says it will offer a five-fold improvement over PCI-E). It will be built on TSMC (TPE: 2330) 16nm FF+ (FinFet plus — the follow-up to FinFET)  process node. It will also use High Bandwidth Memory, allowing a three-fold improvement of bandwidth for its 32 GB of RAM.

Cards with Pascal will likely be marketed towards CUDA workstations, or perhaps as some sort of competitor to Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) Xeon Phi co-processors. Game developers have a tough time pushing the limits of current generation cards as it is.

Pricing and availability of Pascal-based cards will be available later this year or early next year.

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