Bolt Graphics' Zeus GPUs have slowly but surely been generating hype ever since the startup first announced its RISC-V GPUs in March. With its 2026 hardware launch steadily approaching, Bolt made a surprise appearance at the Ubuntu Summit 25.10 this week to talk about the software stack enabling its over-the-top hardware performance claims of being 13 times faster than Nvidia's RTX 5090.
Antonio Salvemini, Director of Graphics Engineering at Bolt Graphics, presented a talk entitled "Beyond the Silicon: Redefining GPU Innovation Through Software and Methodology" at the Summit. Salvemini talked extensively about Bolt Graphics' primary focus on path tracing, a graphics technology used primarily in the animation and film VFX worlds.
