New Delhi, June 3 -- For the past few years, whenever Jensen Huang, boss of Nvidia, has taken the stage, he has followed a familiar script, unveiling ever more powerful semiconductors, software and systems for running artificial intelligence in data centres. No wonder: the AI boom has sparked a spending spree in giant server farms, and much of that money has flowed straight to the giant chipmaker. In the past four years, annual revenue at Nvidia's data-centre division has grown from $11bn to $194bn, pushing the firm's market value past $5trn, more than any other company ever.

But on June 1st at Computex, an annual tech-industry jamboree in Taiwan, Mr Huang did more than refresh Nvidia's data-centre wares. He unveiled RTX Spark, a chip to...