News

NVIDIA’s RTX 50-Series Laptop GPUs Bring Blackwell To Mobile

The company promises improved performance and efficiency, with up to 24GB of GDDR7 RAM for the flagship model.

Published

2 years ago

January 8, 2025

Nour Nasir

NVIDIA

NVIDIA has unveiled its RTX 50-series (Blackwell) GPUs for laptops alongside the desktop lineup, promising impressive performance gains without compromising efficiency. The next-gen hardware features powerful upgrades, including up to 24GB of GDDR7 memory for flagship model. With retail availability set for March and April, CES 2025 attendees are already getting an advanced look at several laptops featuring the GPUs.

The flagship RTX 5090 laptop GPU boasts a staggering 10,496 CUDA cores across 84 Streaming Multiprocessors — nearly matching the desktop RTX 5080 in raw specs. Equipped with 24GB of VRAM using 3GB GDDR7 modules, it operates on a 256-bit memory interface.

The RTX 5080 laptop GPU steps down to 7,680 CUDA cores (60 SMs) and 16GB of memory, matching its predecessor in capacity. It still delivers solid AI performance at 1,334 TOPS, with a flexible TGP range of 80W to 150W.

Meanwhile, the RTX 5070 series is split into two models: the RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU with 5,888 CUDA cores and 12GB of memory, and the base RTX 5070 laptop GPU, which drops to 4,608 cores and 8GB of VRAM.

Also Read: Top 10 Best Video Games Set In The Middle East

Efficiency is a focal point for these GPUs. NVIDIA claims that the RTX 5070 laptop GPU, running at 50-100W, can match the performance of the desktop RTX 4090 while using half the power. Blackwell GPUs also bring updates to NVIDIA’s Max-Q technology, designed to optimize power efficiency for laptops. Key advancements include Advanced Power Gating, which shuts down inactive GPU sections, and Low Latency Sleep, allowing the GPU to quickly enter and exit sleep states to save power during light use.

During its CES presentation, NVIDIA revealed the pricing structure for mobile Blackwell GPUs: Partner costs for the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 are $2,899, $2,199, $1,599, and $1,299, respectively. This pricing reflects what manufacturers pay, so the final cost for laptops featuring these GPUs will be higher.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.