Extreme Co-design

Extreme co-design means that instead of building the different parts of a computer — the processors that do the calculations, the network that lets those parts exchange data, and the dedicated units that churn out results quickly — separately and bolting them together afterward, you design them from the very beginning to fit together as a single, tightly integrated whole. Think of an orchestra: instead of training each musician to be the best they can be on their own, a conductor plans out how every part fits into the whole performance from the outset.

This approach has become necessary because AI systems no longer just spit out one answer and stop. They keep reasoning, calling tools, exchanging information with other AI systems, and carrying out work over long stretches of time. In that kind of process, even if each individual component is fast on its own, the overall response can end up slower if the pieces don't work well together. That's why the design splits roles from the start — the main computing units handle holding onto vast amounts of conversation context, while separate dedicated accelerators are tasked with continuously generating answers in real time.

In the article, it appears in a sentence like: "What NVIDIA is emphasizing isn't optimizing individual components separately, but extreme co-design." A common misunderstanding here is that this doesn't simply mean packing several components into one box. It refers to a result where the processing units, the network, and the dedicated units that generate answers are designed together from the outset, each assigned a distinct role that complements the others.