Bolt Graphics Powers On First Zeus GPU Test Chip, Aims for 2028 Volume Production

First Silicon Power-On

Bolt Graphics announced it successfully powered on the first silicon for its Zeus GPU project. The 12nm test chip, produced by TSMC, functioned as expected upon activation. This initial test chip measures 6mm² and consumes 1.4 watts, a significant reduction from the 35 watts used by the FPGA previously running the design.

Development and Funding

The company has opened an office in Taipei to facilitate closer collaboration with its manufacturing partners. Concurrently, Reuters reported that Bolt Graphics is in the process of raising approximately $100 million in funding, which would value the company at around $700 million. The full Zeus GPU is not expected to reach volume production until 2028.

Zeus GPU Architecture and Claims

The planned Zeus GPU will be built on TSMC's N5P process node and incorporates RISC-V processor cores alongside Bolt's proprietary path-tracing hardware. It will feature PCIe cards with soldered LPDDR5X memory and DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, allowing for memory expansion up to 384GB. Bolt previously claimed the Zeus GPU could offer 10 times the rendering performance of existing GPUs and 300 times the speed in electromagnetic simulation, with up to 10 times the path tracing throughput of Nvidia's RTX 5090; these claims remain untested.

Market Focus

Bolt Graphics intends to initially target studios, engineers, and scientists with the Zeus GPU. Future plans include expanding into the gaming and AI markets, positioning it as a competitor to established consumer GPU manufacturers.