NVIDIA sees no benefit in mobile ray tracing

Earlier this week, AMD and Samsung revealed RDNA 2-based graphics for the Exynos SoC. These new smartphone chips will support both ray tracing and variable rate shading. During a Q&A session, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang received a question about whether NVIDIA will also pursue ray tracing for the mobile market.

Huang replied he doesn't view it as a viable idea, at least not at this point in time. NVIDIA sees more opportunities for its GeForce NOW cloud gaming service rather than high-end graphics chips for smartphones:

"Ray tracing games are quite large, to be honest. The data set is quite large, and there'll be a time for it," Huang said. "When the time is right we might consider it."

The alternate route onto mobile, according to Huang, is Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service, which launched at the start of 2020.

"That's how we would like to reach Android devices, Chrome devices, iOS devices, Mac OS devices, Linux devices, all kinds of devices, whether it's on TV, or mobile device, or PC," he said.

"I think that's for us, right now, that's the best strategy."