Tech Snippets Nvidia building chips tailored for radio units in mobile networks is not a negative for the equipment suppliers

Research evidence excerpt

Tech Snippets Nvidia building chips tailored for radio units in mobile networks is not a negative for the equipment suppliers

J P M O R G A N Europe Equity Research

09 June 2026

Tech Snippets

Nvidia building chips tailored for radio units in mobile

networks is not a negative for the equipment suppliers

The News: Nvidia is reportedly extending its AI-RAN strategy beyond central European Tech Hardware &

unit/distributed unit (CU/DU) compute to the radio unit (RU), developing a GPU- Payments

based chip for the 6G to replace the custom ASICs that handle low-PHY functions Sandeep Deshpande AC

like beamforming in Massive MIMO radios. The article argues that the technical (44-20) 7134-5276

driver is Massive MIMO: as radios scale from basic 4T/4R toward 128T/128R sandeep.s.deshpande@jpmorgan.com

(implying ~32x more low-PHY compute) and potentially “ultra-MIMO” concepts Craig A McDowell

up to 1,024T/1,024R, more PHY processing shifts to the RU to preserve (44-20) 7742-4576

performance (e.g., beamforming). Nvidia believes this creates an opening to craig.mcdowell@jpmorgan.com

replace RU ASICs with a GPU-based approach as it makes programmable silicon Anthony Girard

(44-20) 3493-6469

increasingly attractive versus fixed-function ASICs that lack scale economics in anthony.girard@jpmorgan.com

a non-growth equipment market. Key risks discussed remain power consumption J.P. Morgan Securities plc

(RUs drive ~90% of network energy use) and performance gap versus purpose-

built ASICs. Nvidia could likely counter the power dissipation issue with an Specialist Sales contact details:

automotive-like sub-100W embedded GPU design. The piece also highlights Scott Silver - Specialist Sales -

Nvidia’s recent investments in Marvell ($2bn) and Nokia ($1bn) and notes European TMT