GTC 2026: With Groq 3 LPX, Nvidia adds dedicated inference hardware to its platform for the first time

NVL72 rack serves as the POD's central compute engine

The Vera Rubin NVL72 rack is the core compute unit. It integrates 72 Rubin GPUs, 36 Vera CPUs, ConnectX-9 SuperNICs, and BlueField-4 DPUs across 18 compute trays and 9 NVLink switch trays. All told, Nvidia says the single 19-inch-wide rack packs 1.3 million individual components and roughly 1,300 chips, weighing about 4,000 pounds.

Nvidia claims up to 4x training performance and 10x inference performance per watt compared to Blackwell. The sixth-generation NVLink delivers 3.6 terabytes per second of bandwidth per GPU and 260 terabytes per second across the full rack. The backbone consists of four modular copper cable cartridges holding 5,000 copper cables that span more than two miles.

One of the bigger improvements, according to CEO Jensen Huang, is assembly. The compute trays are completely cable-free, hose-free, and fanless. A PCB midplane replaces traditional cabling, which Nvidia says cuts assembly time per tray from nearly two hours down to five minutes.

Rubin Ultra scales to 576 and 1,152 GPUs