while unified memory may offer better performance than unsoldered DDR system memory, it still won't be as great as 1.8TB/s bandwidth on high end consumer GPUs right now.

nvidias master plan may be making it the new normal to have "only" 400GB/s bandwidth, thus gatekeeping local model usage further behind "more memory but not as fast as the cloud can do it"

I think it’s an interesting theory but a bit too conspiracy theory-ish.

Nvidia just wants to sell stuff to everyone.

And I think for professionals doing local AI work, products like Strix Halo and Apple Silicon are a competitive threat.

A big part of maintaining the leading software ecosystem is ensuring you have competitive hardware for all your users.

I also think the RTX Spark product is relatively low effort for Nvidia. Grab a Mediatek CPU and slap an Nvidia GPU on the die. Sure, that’s oversimplifying it, but still.