Dell: Cut AI cloud costs with data-center class desktops

Why rely on a data center when you can run full-fledged AI models — typically found in the cloud — on your desktop? That’s the argument Dell is making with its new PCs, one of which has a data-center class GPU and can run AI models with a trillion parameters.

Dell’s Pro Max GB300 desktop has Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell Ultra GB300 superchip, the same processor used in data centers to run some of the most demanding AI models.

“Imagine a small company…loading a one trillion parameter Kimi K2.5 model onto the GB300,” Charlie Walker, head of product at Dell, said in a briefing.

The Pro Max GB300 desktop arrives as more AI technologies are being designed to run on PCs and companies look to cut cloud costs. For example, OpenClaw is AI technology that can run agents to automate work on PCs, while also coordinating those tasks with cloud-based large language models (LLMs).

Nvidia has essentially pulled the GB300 superchip from the data center and stuffed it into the desktop. And because AI computing depends on tokens, companies can save money because tokens cost significantly less to generate on desktops than in the cloud.

The Dell Pro Max GB300 uses Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell Ultra GB300 superchip.
Dell

“You think about token generation as driving revenue for the company — pull that out [from the cloud], put that at desk side,” Walker said.

Still, the impressive AI performance has a downside: the Pro Max GB300 is a 1600-watt monster, which means electric bills will be higher. Dell didn’t share the desktop’s price, but it will be expensive – CDW has priced an MSI GB300 workstation at $97,000.

Nvidia is leading the development of deskside AI PCs with its GPUs are sold via PC makers. The Pro Max GB300 has the DGX B300 with 252GB HBM3e of memory. Nvidia has a $4,699 AI desktop called DGX Spark, which has a less powerful GPU.

These high-end PCs “give developers the ability to put something on or under their desk with complete confidence in data security and access and control,” Nvidia’s Chris Marriott, vice president of enterprise platforms, said in a press call.

Desktops are a great place for experimentation, Marriott said, because developers can fine-tune models on desktops before deploying in the cloud.

Developing AI models isn’t as simple as issues prompts and getting a response back, said Marriott. Some AI tasks will start running for weeks and months, especially with agents like OpenClaw talking to each other and companies running code.

Longer tasks generate more tokens, allowing desktops to provide a sandbox to test agents before deploying production models to the cloud. Agentic workflows can also be tested against models in the cloud.

“When you’re running agents you need — especially for deploying production agents —  you always want the highest level of intelligence that you can run or you can afford, because you’re giving them like long running missions,” Marriott said.

Dell didn’t announce a shipping date for the Pro Max GB300, but said some units are already in the hands of a customer. The announcement was timed to coincide with Nvidia’s GTC developer show, which runs through Thursday in San Jose, CA.

Though AI on desktops has been possible, especially with gaming GPUs, the GB300 superchip is explicitly designed for AI, not gaming. Earlier hype around AI PCs was focused on laptops, which are helping improve PC functionality.

The relevance of Dell’s new desktop comes as AI processing spreads to more computing devices outside data centers, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. Though the fast-evolving technology broke open with LLMs on servers, AI is  increasingly moving to the edge with inferencing and small language models, Gold said.

Even so, the cloud will remain a mainstay for enterprise AI applications. Models are effectively served through hybrid cloud servers, which offer more computing power for scaling up AI infrastructures.Dell: Cut AI cloud costs with data-center class desktops – ComputerworldRead More