Nvidia GTC Preview: Why the CPU is Taking Center Stage

Agentic AI is creating genuine CPU demand: orchestration is sequential, CPU-bound work that GPUs can't do. But Nvidia's "standalone CPU" narrative is really a coprocessor story; Grace and Vera are optimized to feed GPUs, not compete for general-purpose workloads at 6.2% share and 72 cores versus 128. The higher-signal play is NVLink licensing, where Nvidia captures networking value regardless of whose CPU fills the socket.